Law and Disorder
by Kittenmommy
Summary: The 8th Doctor finds himself drawn into the murder investigation of a dead museum curator. Crossover with Law and Order.
1. Chapter 1

  
  
"Law and Disorder"  
  
  
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: The _Doctor Who_ characters belong to the BBC. The _Law and Order_ characters (including a special guest appearance by Detective John Munch of _Law and Order: Special Victims Unit_) belong to Dick Wolf and NBC Television. I'm not making any money from this.  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I hope you've read my other fics first, because this one builds on those. Yes, this is all just a _clever plot _to get you to read _all_ of my fics - bwa ha ha ha ha!   
  
Oh yeah, thanks to Warinbabylon for her shoe size consultation, amongst other encouragements!  
  
  
  
  
"It's on me today," Detective Lennie Briscoe told his partner as the vendor ladled a portion of onions simmered in tomato sauce onto a hotdog.  
"Thanks. I'll catch you next time," Briscoe's partner, Detective Ed Green replied, grinning. Though they appeared to have next to nothing in common – Briscoe was white, middle-aged, and jaded while Green was black, young, and enthusiastic – when it came to solving homicides, they were a perfect match. Just as Green was about to take a bite of his hotdog, his cell phone rang in his pocket. Sighing, he pulled it out and flipped it open. "Green." Briscoe paid the vendor and received his own hotdog. He took a bite and watched his partner listening to the person on the other end of the phone. "Got it," Green finally said, flipping the phone shut and stowing it back in his pocket.  
"What've we got?" Briscoe asked.  
"Dead museum curator," Green replied, taking a bite of his lunch as they strolled away from the Sabrett stand with its distinctive yellow and blue umbrella. "Museum of Natural History."  
"My second wife was always saying I could use some culture," Briscoe replied. The two detectives quickly finished their lunch and headed for the museum.  
  
  
The Crime Scene Unit was already there when Briscoe and Green arrived at the museum. A security guard led the two detectives to the victim's office, a small room packed with antique-looking furniture and filing cabinets; the only modern touches were the cordless telephone and the computer sitting on one of the desks. There was a window air conditioning unit which was turned up full blast, making the two detectives shiver in their long gray trench coats. The victim, a thin woman with long ash blonde hair, was sprawled face down on the floor as CSU members gingerly worked around her in the confined space of the office, gathering evidence and taking photographs. Medical Examiner Elizabeth Rodgers, a middle-aged woman with shoulder-length red hair pulled back from her face in a severe ponytail, was kneeling by the body, shaking her head.   
"Well?" Briscoe asked without preamble. Rodgers came to her feet, sighing.  
"I couldn't even begin to give you a cause of death… or even a time of death. She's very cold, but rigor hasn't set in yet. She has three stab wounds, two on either side of the chest – " she put her hands on her own chest to demonstrate, indicating spots about an inch beneath each breast – " and one in the back of the neck, probably inflicted postmortem. From what I can see so far, none of these wounds should have killed her, though the neck wound would have left her paralyzed for life. I'll be able to tell you more after the autopsy." Green nodded.  
"All right," he agreed, scribbling something on his notepad.  
"Who's our lucky winner, by the way?" Briscoe asked.  
"Doctor Eva Newton," Rodgers replied, snapping off her rubber gloves. "Caucasian woman of indeterminate age, probably late thirties or early forties. The security guard said she's worked here for as long as anyone can remember. She's in charge of Special Collections." As the crime scene investigators began preparing the body for removal, a small, bespectacled balding man with a white shirt and a plaid bow tie hurried up to the detectives, wringing his hands.  
"Poor Eva!" he moaned, his eyes riveted to the body. After a moment, he turned back to the two detectives. His brown eyes, made beady by his powerful eyeglasses, sparkled with unshed tears. "Are you the detectives? Who did this to her?" He looked back down at the body. "Oh, _poor_ Eva!"   
"We don't know yet," Briscoe replied. "And you are?" As the man answered, Green wandered away to look at something that had caught his eye on the dead woman's desk.  
"I'm one of her co-workers… Andrew Parker," the new arrival moaned, still wringing his hands and staring at the victim. "I can't believe anyone would want to hurt Eva!"  
"So, she didn't have any enemies?" Briscoe asked.  
"No!" Parker said, sounding shocked by the very suggestion. "Everyone _loved_ Eva!"  
"At least _one_ person didn't," Briscoe deadpanned.  
"Lennie," Green called. "Come see this."  
"Hang on a second," Briscoe told Parker. The man nodded wordlessly. "What've you got?" Briscoe asked his partner, moving to stand by him at the desk.   
"The security guard told me she was in anthropology, but this looks like math… a _lot_ of math," Green said, holding up a diary. "And look," he continued. "Some of the pages are torn out, right before the last entry." Briscoe took it, frowning. Every entry looked like an incredibly long, incredibly complicated algebra equation, a jumble of numbers, Greek lettering, and other symbols that he didn't even begin to recognize. At the bottom of the last page, set a few inches below the last paragraph like an absentminded doodle, were two lone Greek letters; one that looked like the letter "O" with a horizontal line through it and another that Green recognized from college calculus courses as the summation symbol. The two letters were surrounded by an emphatic red circle.  
"It's Greek to me," Briscoe said, shrugging and handing it to one of the crime scene people. "Bag it and tag it." Green picked up a hand held tape recorder from next to the computer keyboard, briefly rewound the tape inside, and hit _play_. It was a woman's voice, speaking in a musical language with long liquid vowels and soft flowing consonants.   
"Is this Greek too?" Green asked Parker, who had appeared at their side, frowning.  
"That's Eva's voice, but I never heard her speak that language," he told them, looking puzzled. "I've done some work in linguistics, and I don't even _recognize_ that language!"  
"Yeah, my first wife spoke a language that no one else could understand too," Briscoe cracked. He handed the tape recorder to another crime scene worker. "Bag it, tag it, and send it and the diary to the brains in linguistics. Maybe they can figure it out. So tell me, Mister Parker," Briscoe continued confidentially, "When was the last time you saw Doctor Newton alive?"  
"Last evening," he replied immediately. "I stopped by here before I left for the reception."  
"What reception?" Green asked.  
"Oh," Parker said, shrugging. "There was a reception at the Rose Center for a lot of big name donors… I asked her if she was going, and she said she'd see me there later. That was the last time I saw her."  
"What time was this?" Green asked.  
"Let me think," Parker replied, frowning. "About seven, maybe. Six-thirty at the earliest."  
"OK, thanks," Green said, handing him one of his business cards. "And if you can think of anything else that might be helpful, just give us a call."  
"I sure will!" He watched as Dr. Rodgers and her team bore the body out on a stretcher. "Poor Eva!" he wailed, following them out the door.   
"We'll need a copy of that guest list," Green said after a moment. Briscoe sighed.  
"Yeah, with any luck, there weren't more than two or three hundred people there last night!"   
"Look on the bright side," Green told him. "At least they'll all be celebrities and snobs!" Briscoe rolled his eyes.  
"Oh goody, I can hardly wait!"  
"Excuse me," a new voice said. It was polite, pleasant, English accented. Briscoe and Green turned to stare at its owner, a tall man in his thirties with blue-green eyes and wavy brown hair that hung down around his face. He was dressed in a dark green velvet Victorian frock coat with a patterned waistcoat and a gray cravat at his neck. With him was a beautiful young blonde woman who looked vaguely familiar to both detectives, but neither could place where they'd seen her before. "I've come to see Doctor Newton," the new arrival said. "But I was told she's been… well, you must be the detectives."   
"Lennie Briscoe," Briscoe said, holding out his hand. "This is my partner, Ed Green."  
"I'm the Doctor, and this is my daughter, Angelina," the man replied.  
"Must've gotten cold out there," Green noted mildly as he released Angelina's hand. "Your hands are freezing!" The Doctor opened his mouth to say something, and his daughter promptly stood on his foot.  
"Um, we've just had some sodas," Angelina said, looking uncomfortable. "Those cans tend to make the hands rather cold," she continued with an apologetic smile. The detectives noticed that her accent was a bit different than the Doctor's, more _English_ in a way they couldn't identify.   
"Now, listen," the Doctor said urgently. "This is _very_ important. Before they autopsy her, I must know… how was she killed? What were the wounds like?" Green shrugged.  
"She was stabbed twice in the chest," he said.  
"That's it?" the Doctor asked, appearing relieved.  
"No. She was stabbed in the back of the neck, too," Briscoe said, frowning. The Doctor winced.  
"That settles it," he said heavily, sounding sad for the first time during the conversation. "She is indeed well and truly dead. It doesn't much matter what your medical examiner does to her now."  
"Are you a friend of Doctor Newton's?" Briscoe asked suddenly.   
"Oh yes, but I haven't seen her in ages. We were at the Academy together."  
"Uh huh," Green said absently, writing on his notepad. "When was the last time you saw her?"  
"Well, let me think," the Doctor said musingly. "It's been at least, oh… three or four centuries, I'd say."  
"Centuries?" Green asked. He stopped writing and looked at the Doctor with raised eyebrows "Three or four _centuries_?"   
"Yes, it would have to be," the Doctor said to himself, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He glanced at the detectives. "I haven't been to a class reunion in at least that long."  
"Yeah, me neither," Briscoe agreed, exchanging a glance with Green. "Maybe we should continue this talk down at the station." Angelina groaned.  
"I'd be delighted," the Doctor said, beaming. Green firmly grasped one of his arms, Briscoe firmly grasped the other, and the two detectives led him from the room. "Have you got any suspects?" the Doctor asked, sounding interested.  
"Oh yeah, plenty," Briscoe told him mildly. "We'd like you to confer with one of our experts, Doctor Elizabeth Olivet. Maybe you can help her put a profile together."  
"Excellent. I'll be more than happy to help you sort them all out," the Doctor said obligingly.  
"You _do_ realize that they think you're a raving nutter, don't you?" Angelina asked him. He seemed not to hear.  
"What we really should do first is make sure the Eye is safe," the Doctor was saying earnestly.  
"The Eye?" Green asked.  
"Why yes," the Doctor said sincerely, as though it were obvious. "The Eye of Rassilon. I'm sure that's why she was killed. Someone was after the Eye."  
"We'll come back and look for the Eye later," Briscoe promised him in the soothing tones one uses to placate a possibly dangerously deranged lunatic. "Right now you have an appointment with Doctor Olivet."  
  
  
Briscoe and Green watched the Doctor remove the contents of his pockets, placing them neatly on Briscoe's desk. So far, he had produced a Darth Vader action figure circa 1979 missing its cape and red lightsaber, a birthday card signed _Thanks so much for that little hint! James Watson and Francis Crick_, a little metal book with etched writing in an unrecognizable language, a mail order receipt from L.L. Bean for a pair of "Bean's Rugged Walkers" in Men's Size 10, and a small can of Silly String.  
"Is he under arrest?" Angelina asked the detectives.  
"No, Ma'am," Green assured her. "We just have some questions for him." The Doctor continued to remove items from his pockets.  
"What's this?" Briscoe asked, picking up a long, cylindrical metal object.  
"Sonic screwdriver," the Doctor answered shortly, digging around in his other pocket and producing a cricket ball, a harmonica, a "Who's Next" cassette tape missing its case, three blue packets of aspartame sweetener, a very large piece of lint, and a crumpled paper sack. Briscoe carefully examined the screwdriver.  
"It doesn't look like it would be good for screwing anything in," he observed. "What use is it?"  
"It was _very_ useful against the Ice Warriors in London," the Doctor said absently, still feeling around in his pockets. At Briscoe's incredulous look, he waved his hand. "Never mind, you wouldn't remember that; it happened in another universe. All right, that's everything. Are you satisfied that I am unarmed and quite harmless?" Green picked up the crumpled sack and peered inside.  
"What's this?" he asked suspiciously. "Drugs?"  
"Heavens no!" the Doctor exclaimed, sounding affronted. "They're jellybabies!" Green gave him a puzzled look. "Candies," the Doctor elaborated. "Try one, Detective – I assure you, they're quite good." Green pulled out a red candy and popped it into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully.  
"Hey, that _is_ good!" he said after a moment, offering the bag to Briscoe. "Try one of these!" Briscoe took one.  
"I got a green one," he said, chewing. "Is there anything special about those?"  
"Nnnot that I'm aware of," the Doctor replied carefully, completely missing the joke. Briscoe chuckled.   
"Never mind. If you'd follow Detective Green…" he gestured towards the departing detective, and Angelina moved to follow. "Ma'am, I need for you to wait over there, please," he said, indicating a row of chairs along one wall. Sighing, Angelina watched Briscoe follow his partner and the Doctor to the interview rooms.  
  
  
Lieutenant Anita Van Buren and Doctor Elizabeth Olivet watched the Doctor through the two-way glass mirror. He sat casually in his chair, his hands neatly folded on the metal table in front of him, his eyes closed in peaceful contemplation.   
"Do you think he killed her?" Olivet asked. Van Buren shrugged.  
"That's what I want _you_ to tell _me_. From what Briscoe and Green said, this guy's not playing with a full deck, but that doesn't make him a murderer." Just then, the two detectives entered the interview room, pulling up chairs to sit opposite the Doctor, who gave no indication that he realized they'd arrived.  
"Doctor?" Green said after a moment. The Doctor opened his eyes.  
"Sorry, I was thinking about something. Now, where is this Doctor Olivet you want me to meet?"  
"We'll get to that later," Briscoe assured him. "We'd just like you to answer a few questions for us first."  
"If I can," the Doctor agreed cheerfully.  
"Let's start with your name," Green said.   
"What about it?" the Doctor asked curiously.  
_"What's your name?"_ Green asked tightly, sounding as though his patience was coming to an end. The Doctor frowned slightly.  
"That's a very difficult question," he said sincerely.  
"Not for most people," Briscoe said.   
"Oh come on Lennie, there were plenty of nights when _you_ didn't know _your_ own name!" Green told him teasingly.  
"Sure, but that's different," Briscoe replied easily, gesturing at the Doctor. "This guy's sober… at least I think he is."  
"Of course I am!" the Doctor said indignantly.  
"So let's try this again," Briscoe said. _"What's your name?"_  
"John Smith," the Doctor said, his eyes widening innocently. Briscoe snorted.  
"Yeah, right," he said sarcastically. "And I'm Jim Doe."  
"Really? I thought you're Lennie Briscoe," the Doctor said, leaning forward, looking confused. Briscoe gave him a meaningful look, and the Doctor held up his hands in a gesture of defeat. "All right, look," he began. "I know this is going to sound crazy, but it's true." Behind the two-way glass, Van Buren and Olivet exchanged a look.  
"Try us," Briscoe suggested. The Doctor leaned back in his seat and regarded the two detectives critically.  
"All right," the Doctor finally said, sounding resigned.  
"Here's where he starts claiming he's getting instructions from Jesus Christ on his fillings," Van Buren murmured. Olivet snorted.   
"I'm a Time Lord," the Doctor said quietly.  
"You're a what?" Green asked. The Doctor sighed.  
"A Time Lord," he repeated. The two detectives exchanged puzzled looks. "A Lord of Time," the Doctor said impatiently, as though rearranging the order of the words would make them more comprehensible to the two detectives. It didn't; both continued staring blankly at him. "I travel through time and space." Behind the two-way mirror, Olivet raised her eyebrows.  
"Well, this is a new one," she murmured.  
"Eva and I – " he began.  
"Let me guess. She was a Time Lord…?" Green asked suddenly. "Time _Lady_," he amended hastily. The Doctor gave him a look.  
"Yes, exactly." He sighed. "Look, I know you think my main space-time element's not fitted properly, but – " At the detectives' blank looks, he sighed again. "What I mean is, I know you think I've got some screws loose. I don't expect you to believe me at the moment. I am a scientist. I don't take outrageous claims at face value, and I probably wouldn't believe me either in your place without any proof. But just wait until your medical examiner begins her autopsy. Would you like me to tell you some of the things she'll find? The two hearts, for example… I suspect _those_ will stand out immediately."  
"Two hearts?" Briscoe asked, sounding unconvinced.  
"Yes. Two hearts, a respiratory bypass system, a few organs and glands that you humans haven't got… you'll see." He smiled like the cat that had gotten the cream. "I'd _love_ to see your faces when you read the autopsy report." He stood. "Perhaps we should continue this conversation then, when you're more open minded about things."  
"He really believes this stuff, doesn't he?" Van Buren asked Olivet. The psychiatrist nodded absently, absorbed in what was happening on the other side of the two-way glass. A phone on the wall behind them rang, and the lieutenant picked it up. "Van Buren," she said.  
"Listen to me," the Doctor was saying in a reasonable tone. "I am not telling you some kind of nonsense about getting signals from Jupiter on my television set or that I've come here in an invisible space ship that only I can see. Your victim and I are not human beings, Detectives, and all the proof you need – good, solid proof – is lying on that autopsy table."  
"Two hearts," Green mused, leaning back in his chair and thinking about the victim's unusual stab wounds, one on each side of the chest. "Rodgers said those wounds shouldn't have killed her…" he murmured to himself. Realizing that Green was actually thinking things through rather than just dismissing him as a mental case, the Doctor sat back down.  
"No, they shouldn't have, if she were a human being." the Doctor agreed. "And they wouldn't have killed a Time Lady, either… they would have stopped her hearts, but they wouldn't have _killed_ her. She would have regenerated."  
"Regenerated?" Briscoe asked.  
"Her body would have regenerated on the cellular level... she would have lived again, but in a different body." He waved a hand impatiently. "Look, I'll explain later. What's important is that it was the stab to the back of the neck that did her in."  
"OK… so, assuming that you're telling the truth," Green said slowly, "whoever killed her would've had to know how to do it…"  
"Exactly," the Doctor said in the pleased tone of a professor whose student has just mastered a difficult concept. "The killer knew she was a Time Lady."  
"_You_ knew she was a Time Lady," Green said suddenly. The Doctor sighed.  
"Aside from the fact that I wouldn't kill anyone - let alone a friend - I think if you look at the gossip column in this morning's _New York Post_, you'll find that I have an alibi. I was at the Tommy Hilfiger show, watching my daughter 'do her thing' as they say."  
"All right," Green said. "So we're back to figuring out who would know she's a Time Lady."  
"Can anyone participate in this discussion, or do you need a note from your psychiatrist?" Briscoe asked.  
"How about a note from your medical examiner?" Van Buren asked, walking into the interview room. "Doctor Rodgers is on the phone," she continued. "She said she just opened the victim's chest and you're not going to believe what she found." The Doctor smiled at the detectives.  
"I told you so," he said smugly.  
  
  
Detective John Munch was not having a good day.   
After spending an hour tied up in a New York City traffic jam in a car with broken air conditioning on what had quickly become a bright sunny day, Munch had finally arrived at the 27th Precinct to learn that the file Captain Cragen had sent him to retrieve wasn't ready yet. It would be ready_ tomorrow_. In fact, Captain Cragen had been _told_ that it would not be ready until _tomorrow_, and Munch should return for it _then_.  
"It's a conspiracy," he mumbled to himself, wiping his sweaty forehead with the back of one hand. "I know it." The ride back to his own station promised to be as hot and uncomfortable as his journey here had been, and Munch decided to buy a can of soda before he left. He headed for the soda machine at the back of the squad room, and suddenly stopped dead in his tracks.  
There was a girl – a strikingly beautiful blonde girl – sitting by herself in the waiting area, looking worried and miserable. She looked like… _no, it couldn't be,_ Munch told herself. Perhaps feeling his eyes upon her, her head came up, and she regarded him steadily with those famous deep blue eyes. _Oh my God, it is! It's that supermodel… it's Angelina!_ Munch was suddenly painfully aware of his sweat-stained white shirt, his dirty glasses, and his sweaty salt-and-pepper hair that had fallen out of its neatly combed back style to hang in untidy, damp locks around his face.   
"Hello," she said uncertainly. "Are you one of the detectives?" Munch swiped his hair back with one hand and decided to make the best of it.  
"Yes I am," he replied. "I'm Detective John Munch."  
"And my name is Angelina," she said, rising to her feet and offering her hand, which felt refreshingly cool after his hot car ride. "Do you know if Detective Briscoe and Detective Green have finished with my father yet?"   
"No, Ma'am, but I can find out," he answered at once.   
"It's just that I'm very worried," she said as he led her through the squad room towards the interview rooms. "I know the things he's probably saying must sound crazy to them, and I don't want them to have him locked up." At that moment, the door to the interview room opened and a white woman with dark curly hair exited and continued past them through the squad room. She was followed by the two detectives, who were in deep conversation with a stately looking black woman. The Doctor followed behind, and Angelina's eyes lit up with relief when she saw him. "Thank God!" she exclaimed with feeling. He gave her a tired smile.  
"They're not locking me up today, anyway," he told her ironically.  
"Our medical examiner is seeing things that make her feel crazier than your dad _sounds_!" the black woman said, giving Angelina a smile. "You must be Angelina. I'm Lieutenant Van Buren." As Angelina shook her hand, a cell phone rang.  
"Blast," Angelina muttered, pulling a powder pink phone out of her pocket. "I'm sorry," she apologized as she pressed a button on the phone. "I'm waiting for a call from my mother. Hello?" This last was said into the phone. She listened for a moment, frowning. "Look, Fred, we haven't got _anything_ to say to each other. I'm not – " She listened for another few seconds, catching the Doctor's eye. "My father's here and _he_ wants to talk to you," she said suddenly, handing the phone to the Doctor.   
"Hello, who's this?" the Doctor asked into the phone as Angelina grinned wickedly. "Oh yes, you're that tiresome little rock singer, aren't you? The one I chased 'round the lobby of the Chateau Marmont with a cricket bat. Yes, I remember _you_. You listen to me, my boy: I'm not a man you want to cross. I'm over eleven hundred years old and I do three impossible things before breakfast every morning. Daleks and Cybermen flee at the very mention of my name, and Ice Warriors tremble in their armor. I have walked unprotected through the Time Vortex and lived to tell about it. In the grand scheme of my life, _you_ are _very_ small potatoes. Now, there are two things that I suggest you keep in mind: leave my daughter alone. Do we understand one another? Hmm, what? What other thing? Oh, right, the other thing you should keep in mind. Autoerotic asphyxiation is a nasty and embarrassing way to die. Good afternoon." With that, he ended the call, handed the phone back to Angelina and grinned broadly at the astounded detectives. "Now, where were we? Oh yes, I think I'd like my things back if you don't mind," he said, moving to Briscoe's desk and collecting the items he'd removed from his pockets.  
"And people say _I'm_ crazy," Munch muttered.  
"You _are_ crazy, Munch," Briscoe told him amiably. He motioned at the Doctor. "Come on, kids. We've got an autopsy to attend."  
"I can't take her to an autopsy!" the Doctor protested, gesturing at Angelina. He glanced around briefly, his blue gaze finally settling on Munch. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."  
"Detective John Munch, sir," Munch replied, for some reason suddenly feeling like an errant schoolboy called before the principal. He suppressed the urge to look at the ground and shuffle his feet.  
"Ah good. Detective Munch. I am the Doctor, and I see you've met Angelina. Now that we've all had proper introductions, would you be so kind as to look after my daughter while we're with the medical examiner? Take her for some coffee or something…" He shrugged and gave Munch a weary smile. "I'd really appreciate it."  
"Sure," Munch choked out, unable to believe his luck. His day had just gone from hellacious to heavenly in the course of a single sentence.  
  
  
Continued in Chapter 2  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

  
"Law and Disorder"  
  
  
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: See: Chapter 1. ADDITIONAL: Beautiful perfume belongs to Estée Lauder.  
  
  
Chapter 2  
  
  
Doctor Rodgers was continuing her exploration of the victim's chest cavity when they arrived. At the sound of the door opening, she looked up from her gruesome work.  
"You're not going to believe this," she told the detectives without preamble. "Your victim has two hearts. _Two hearts_." She made a sound like a sigh of resignation. "Stabbed neatly in each of them, too. Once in the right ventricle of the right heart, once in the left ventricle of the left one." She glanced at the Doctor, noticing him for the first time. "Who's this?"  
"The Doctor," Green said.  
"Who?" Rodgers asked, frowning.  
"I'd tell you that he's a mysterious stranger from another planet who says he can travel through time, but you wouldn't believe me" Briscoe deadpanned.  
"Today I'd believe almost anything," Rodgers said with another sigh. She turned her attention to the Doctor. "I'm Elizabeth Rodgers. Normally, I'd shake your hand, but…" her voice trailed off and she gave a little shrug, holding up a bloody gloved hand.   
"I quite understand," the Doctor said quietly, looking down at the autopsy table sadly.  
"What can you tell me about the victim?" Rodgers asked him briskly.  
"She was my friend," he replied absently, reaching down to smooth a lock of hair back from the victim's face.   
"Oh, I'm sorry," Rodgers said, taken aback. "I didn't know." She turned a meaningful look on the detectives. "Have you two lost your minds?" she demanded angrily. "What are you doing bringing one of the victim's friends to her autopsy?"   
"It's quite all right," the Doctor said, visibly collecting himself. "I asked to come. I'm probably the only person on this planet who can help you find her killer."  
"So you knew that she was…" Rodgers indicated the victim's strange anatomy with the wave of a hand. "…whatever she was," the medical examiner finished lamely. The Doctor nodded.  
"Gallifreyan. Yes, of course."   
"How do you spell that?" Green asked. The Doctor saw that the detective had his notepad out again, and spelled the alien name for him with a slight smile.  
"I thought you said she's a Time Lady," Briscoe said. The Doctor closed his eyes for a moment.  
"Yes, yes," he said with a sigh. "Time Lady is a title. Gallifreyan is a species."  
"And you're one too?" Briscoe pressed.  
"Yes, that's right. I'm a Time Lord," the Doctor agreed in a _we've been over this already_ sort of voice.  
"Look, I'm just trying to get all the facts straight here," Briscoe told him. "Unlike you, _we_ don't see stuff like this every day - not even in New York!"  
"You have _two hearts_?" Rodgers asked the Doctor suddenly, staring at him in disbelief, almost as though the evidence before her on the autopsy table wasn't enough to convince her. The Time Lord sighed.  
"Look, this _really_ isn't difficult," he assured them, sounding exasperated. "Eva and I are of the same species. We come from the same planet. We were at the Academy together."  
"All right, forget about all that for now," Green said, sensing that the Doctor's patience was coming to an end. "Why don't you help Doctor Rodgers with this autopsy, and then we'll see where we stand."  
  
  
Several hours later, Briscoe and Green were summoned back to the medical examiner's office, where they found a dazed-looking Rodgers sitting behind her desk and a weary-looking Doctor sprawled in a chair in front of it with his head back and his eyes closed. Both doctors wore crumpled, sweaty surgical scrubs and both had small glasses of amber liquid sitting in front of them on the cluttered desk.   
"What've you got for us?" Briscoe asked, taking a seat next to the Doctor, who opened his eyes, flicked them briefly in the detective's direction, and closed them again.  
"No sign of sexual assault," Rodgers said as Green sat down in a chair next to his partner. "Cause of initial death was the stab wounds to the hearts. Cause of final death was the stab wound to the back of the neck."  
"Just as I told you back at the police station," the Doctor said quietly without opening his eyes.   
"The angles of the chest wounds suggest that she was taken by surprise, attacked from behind," Rodgers continued.  
"Did she know her attacker?" Green asked. Rodgers shrugged.  
"No way to tell." She took a sip of her drink and grimaced. "She fought back, though, took a chunk out of him. There were some nice skin scrapings under her fingernails. We're running the DNA now. God only knows _what_ we'll find… Martian DNA, maybe?" The Doctor opened his eyes.  
"Mmm, doubtful," he said seriously, sitting up and taking a sip of his drink. "This is marvelous scotch, Elizabeth." She inclined her head in thanks. "I think it's more likely that her killer is another Time Lord."  
"Why would you think that?" Green asked curiously.  
"Because I know what she was doing here on Earth," the Doctor replied, sipping his scotch. There was a long silence.  
"Are you planning to tell _us_?" Briscoe finally asked.   
"it's a _very_ long story," the Doctor told him earnestly.  
"I don't know about Ed or Doctor Rodgers, but _I_ have _plenty_ of time," Briscoe replied.   
"And _I_ have plenty of scotch," Rodgers said, producing the bottle from her desk drawer and an empty glass for Green.   
"Thanks, but I'm on duty," Green told her. She shrugged, topped off the Doctor's drink and her own, and put the bottle and the empty glass back in the drawer.   
"About a hundred Earth years ago, a renegade Time Lord called the Master tried to steal the Eye of Rassilon from the Panopticon on Gallifrey," the Doctor began. Briscoe opened his mouth, and the Doctor held up a hand to forestall his question. "This is quite a long story, Detective Briscoe. Please do not interrupt. The Eye was created by Rassilon himself, the greatest Time Lord who ever lived, long before your planet was even a proverbial gleam in the Universe's eye. Legend has it that the Eye can be used to see any timeline that ever did, will, would, could, or can exist."  
"Huh?" Briscoe asked, unable to help himself. The Doctor sighed and sipped his scotch.  
"Look, every time you make any sort of decision, the timeline forks into what you _did_ do, and what you _could_ have done. Every decision, every single choice you make, creates another fork and another set of timelines." Briscoe was frowning, puzzled. The Doctor began to take another sip of scotch, but Briscoe took the glass out of his hand and set it down on the desk out of the Time Lord's reach.  
"Listen, Doc, the more of this stuff you drink, the less sense you make. Believe me, I'm the expert." The Doctor looked exasperated.  
"I'm a Gallifreyan. It would take fifteen bottles of that scotch to get me drunk. You're just not paying attention… or perhaps I'm not explaining it well." He thought for a moment. "When President John F. Kennedy was shot, he died and Lyndon B. Johnson became president, correct?" Everyone nodded. "Everyone with me so far? Good. Now, there exist other timelines, ones in which the bullet missed and Kennedy finished out his presidency, or in which he was grazed and made a paraplegic, or… or… or _whatever_. With the Eye of Rassilon, you could see _every_ possibility that ever existed played out before you like _that_," he finished, snapping his fingers. "If the Eye ever fell into the hands of an unscrupulous Time Lord who did not feel bound by our doctrine of noninterference…" He spread his hands expansively. "You can imagine what would happen."  
"You could change history," Rodgers whispered softly.  
"Oh, no… not just change history," the Doctor corrected her soberly. "Any Time Lord can do that, though the results are wildly unpredictable and we are expressly forbidden to do so by our own noninterference laws. With the Eye as a guide, one could change history in whatever direction one wished, and be completely confident of the outcome, because one could watch the ripple of the change cascade down through history in the Eye without ever actually having to do anything. Changing history is a tricky thing and best not attempted even by people like me, who know what we're doing; however, the Eye would make it quite easy to achieve whatever goal one wished."  
"Wish I'd had access to that thing before I got married the second time," Briscoe cracked.   
"So, this 'Master' guy tried to steal the Eye…" Green prompted.  
"Yes," the Doctor said, leaning forward to retrieve his glass of scotch and taking a sip. "And from what I understand, he very nearly succeeded. After that very embarrassing debacle, the Lord President and the High Council decided to send the Eye into hiding on an obscure little planet of no real consequence, with a Time Lord to guard it just in case."  
"Or a Time Lady," Green said, beginning to see where this was going.  
"Yes, exactly," the Doctor said, nodding.   
"Do you think this 'Master' is behind Doctor Newton's murder?" Briscoe asked. The Doctor shook his head.  
"Oh, no, no, no… the Master fell into the Eye of Harmony a few years ago," he said dismissively.  
"Oh… well…" Briscoe said, shrugging. "Ask a crazy question…"  
"If the Eye shows the future, wouldn't Doctor Newton have seen her own murder in it?" Rodgers suddenly asked, horrified by the thought.  
"She wouldn't have ever actually _used_ the Eye," the Doctor told her. "She wouldn't have been permitted. It's a _very_ dangerous object. In the wrong hands, it could literally be _the_ most dangerous object in the Universe."  
"Which we can now assume has been stolen by some Time Lord _shtarker_ who wants to change history," Briscoe said. "That's a cheerful thought." The Doctor shook his head.  
"No, it may not have been stolen. It's possible that the person looking for it didn't find it. The Eye is not something that Eva would have left lying around in plain sight… errrr, no pun intended."  
"All right, so we'll go to the museum and look for it," Briscoe said, rising. "Just give us a description."  
"That's a problem," the Doctor admitted, looking up at him thoughtfully. "You see, I've never actually seen the thing myself; it was always kept strictly under lock and key during my days on Gallifrey. I'll have to come along and help you look for it."  
"I thought you said you've never seen it," Green said, sounding puzzled.  
"I'll be able to feel its presence. Any time sensitive would, though not many of them would understand what it was they were sensing."  
"Looks like you get to be our Geiger counter," Green agreed, standing. "Come on, let's find your clothes and get out of here."  
  
  
A return visit to the museum proved fruitless; before they'd even entered the building, the Doctor was able to tell them that the Eye was nowhere near the place.  
"How can you be sure?" Briscoe asked. The Doctor shrugged.   
"Just am."  
"Maybe it's in the Rose Center," Briscoe pressed.  
"It is not _anywhere_ around here, I promise you," the Time Lord told him firmly.  
"Well, this was a wasted trip," Green said, shielding his eyes against the late afternoon sun and staring up at the museum's impressive stone edifice, which was currently hung with a huge black banner depicting a swirling galaxy overlaid with white lettering that read, _The Search For Life: Are We Alone_? The detective laughed out loud at the irony.  
"Perhaps she kept it in her TARDIS," the Doctor mused. "Yes, that would make more sense." He didn't even wait for the detectives' inevitable questions. "T-A-R-D-I-S," he spelled out. "Stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. They're the vehicles we Time Lords use to travel through space and time."  
"What do they look like?" Green asked, looking around as though expecting to see a gleaming silver flying saucer straight out of a 1950s B-movie sitting on tall spindly legs in a parking lot somewhere near the museum.  
"They can look like _anything_," the Doctor answered. "Here in Manhattan, her TARDIS could be a garbage can, a telephone booth, a brownstone, a hotdog stand… _anything_. TARDISes have chameleon circuits that make them blend in perfectly with any environment… well, that's the idea, anyway," he amended in a rueful tone the detectives didn't understand.  
"Oh great," Briscoe said, throwing his hands up in the air in frustration. "We're looking for the most dangerous object in the Universe, only we don't know exactly what it _looks like_, and it might be inside of something _else_ that can look like _anything_."  
"I want off this case," Green said mournfully.  
"Cheer up, you two!" the Doctor said cheerfully, grinning and clapping both detectives on their shoulders. "I know just what to do. 'Use a TARDIS to find a TARDIS,' my dear old dad always used to say!"  
"You have one of these TARDIS things?" Briscoe asked. The Doctor sighed, sounding very put-upon.  
"Time Lords have TARDISes, Detective. I am a Time Lord. Ergo…"  
"So, where'd you park it?" Briscoe asked as the trio started up the street together. The Doctor glanced at the detective and saw the look on his face. Realizing that he was being needled deliberately, he decided to play it to the hilt.  
"One does not _park_ a TARDIS, Detective," he sniffed in his best affronted tone. "One _materializes_ a TARDIS." He dialed all of the regal, frosty disdain of a Time Lord of Gallifrey into his voice. "The very idea! _Parking_ a TARDIS. In_deed_." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Briscoe and Green exchange grins, and allowed himself a small, satisfied smile. They walked a few more blocks up Central Park West in companionable silence until the Doctor stopped in front of a large, ornate apartment building.  
"_This_ is your TARDIS?" Green asked, goggling up at the building in astonishment. "It has a _doorman_!"  
"No, _this_ is an apartment building," the Doctor replied patiently. "My TARDIS is…" He raised his eyebrows at Briscoe. "…_parked_ inside."  
"Oh," Green said, feeling stupid.  
"Don't feel bad," Briscoe told his partner. "I thought the same thing. He _did_ say it could look like _anything_."  
"Well, mine can't," the Doctor said briskly, leading them through the lobby to the elevators.   
"Why not?" Briscoe asked as the Doctor pressed the button for the elevator.  
"Because it's broken." The elevator arrived and they got on, the Doctor pressing a button for the floor labeled _P_. "I once took it to 1960s England where it turned into a police box and promptly froze that way."  
"They don't make 'em like they used to, huh?" Briscoe commiserated.  
"They certainly don't," the Doctor said. "And there are some who say they _never_ should have made them like the Type 40!"   
"The Edsel of TARDISes, huh?" Briscoe asked.  
"Something like that," the Doctor agreed.  
"If it's a lemon, why don't you get a new one?" Green asked as the elevator stopped. The Doctor led them off the elevator and up the hallway.  
"This one's comfortable," the Doctor replied with a shrug. "Like an old pair of shoes. Here we are," he said, stopping in front of a door. "My daughter's flat," he explained, knocking. Almost as soon as his knuckles hit the door, it flew open from within to reveal a petite woman with short, curly brunette hair. She was beautiful, the two detectives decided… and furious.  
"Where have you been?" she demanded immediately, anger thickening her Australian accent.  
"Sounds like my first wife," Briscoe said quietly to Green.  
"I – " the Doctor began. The woman suddenly frowned and leaned towards him, sniffing.  
"Hell's teeth!" she exclaimed. "Have you been _drinking_?"   
"Sounds like my _second_ wife," Briscoe added in the same tone. Green suppressed a laugh.  
"I – " the Doctor began. She suddenly noticed that he wasn't alone.   
"Who are these people? More detectives? What have you gotten yourself into _this_ time, Doctor?" He was silent for a long moment; when no further outburst seemed forthcoming, he finally spoke.  
"Do you think we might come in first?" the Doctor asked in a quiet, calm tone that earned Briscoe's heartfelt admiration, for the detective knew from firsthand experience in similar situations how difficult it must have been for the Time Lord to manage it. Glaring angrily at the Doctor, the woman pushed the door open further and stalked into the apartment.  
"Wife?" Briscoe asked in a sympathetic tone.  
"No," the Doctor said shortly, leading the two detectives into the apartment.  
"Angelina told me all about her visit to the Museum of Natural History today, Doctor," the woman continued angrily as they entered the living room. "How you got her all caught up in a murder investigation and sent her home with a homicide detective for her protection!"  
"That's not exactly how it – " the Doctor began.  
"A _homicide detective_, Doctor! Leave it to you to turn an ordinary visit to an interesting place into something gruesome and terrible!"  
"Gruesome and terrible… sounds like Munch all right," Briscoe said _sotto voce_; Green fought and thankfully won a heroic battle to stifle his laughter.  
"Tegan, I only –" the Doctor was saying.  
"That's par for the course with you, isn't it? Everything that was supposed to be nice always turned out to be bloody awful – even our holiday on the Eye of Orion turned out badly in the end, with the Time Scoop and Rassilon's Game and – "  
"Tegan," the Doctor said quietly.   
" – the next thing we knew, we were in the Death Zone with Cybermen and – "  
"Tegan," he said again in a slightly louder voice.  
" – a bloody Raston Warrior Robot and the Master – "  
"Tegan," he said again, this time really raising his voice.  
" – and a Yeti and – "  
_"Tegan!"_ the Doctor shouted. The woman's outburst immediately subsided. There was a very long silence. The Doctor cleared his throat. "Tegan Jovanka, may I introduce Detective Lennie Briscoe and Detective Ed Green of the New York Police Department."  
"Charmed," Tegan said shortly, moving forward to smile at the detectives and shake their hands in greeting. She shot a glare at the Doctor. "Now, what's going on, Doctor?"   
"Not now, Tegan," he said wearily, rubbing his eyes. "I've had a very long day, and it's not over yet."  
"I know you. You hardly _ever_ drink," she said suspiciously.  
"Yes, well, I hardly ever autopsy old friends, either," he retorted bitterly. She blanched.  
"I'm sorry," she said quietly, all of the fight seeming to go out of her. She went to him, laying a gentle hand on his arm. "Oh God, Doctor, I'm so sorry." Without a word, he pulled away from her and moved briskly towards something that looked like a blue phone booth standing in the corner; oddly enough, the two detectives had been so caught up in the argument between Tegan and the Doctor that its incongruous presence in the apartment hadn't consciously registered with either of them until that moment. He produced something on a chain from an inside jacket pocket – the detectives realized that it wasn't something they'd seen among his possessions when he'd emptied his pockets for them earlier that day – and used it to unlock the door to the blue phone booth.  
"Gentlemen?" he said quietly, motioning them towards the open door.  
"I'm just off then," a new voice said. They all turned to see Angelina entering the living room in a fragrant cloud of Beautiful perfume. Her long blonde hair was pulled up in a loose chignon, and she wore a light pink shirt and a pair of jeans, and carried a little white purse with beige handles and pastel lettering all over it.  
"Where are you going?" the Doctor asked, frowning. "Not somewhere with that tiresome little rock singer, I hope. I thought I told him – "  
"No, silly," she said laughing. "Detective Munch is taking me out to dinner." _Munch?_ Briscoe and Green exchanged incredulous looks, and then turned apprehensively to see the Doctor's reaction; surely, they thought, he wouldn't be pleased with _this_ development.  
"Oh well, that's all right then," the Time Lord said, astounding them further. She bounded over to kiss him on the cheek.  
"I won't be late, I promise," she assured him.  
"Well, I may be," he replied.   
"You can bring me up to date on everything whenever you get back," she told him with a smile, and then went to kiss her mother. "Goodbye, Detectives," she called, waving at them over her shoulder as she hurried out the door.  
_"Munch,"_ Green said quietly, still in shock. "Munch and a _supermodel_."  
"Well, I'll be a son of a – " Briscoe began.  
"Munch and Angelina," Green muttered. "Angelina and Munch." He shook his head. No matter how he rearranged it, it still didn't seem to fit.   
"Gentlemen?" the Doctor said again, an impatient note creeping into his voice.  
"We're all going in _there_?" Green asked dubiously.   
"Don't worry," Tegan assured them. "It's bigger than it looks!"   
Indeed it was; the detectives stared around at the console room, awestruck by the vaulted domed ceiling which was currently displaying a view of the night sky as seen from the surface of God only knew what planet; neither detective could pick out any familiar constellations in the alien skies.   
"Come on," the Doctor urged, bounding down the steps and heading for the control console, which was set in the middle of the room. It looked like something that belonged in an H.G. Wells novel, Green decided. And although the levers, dials, switches, and gauges all had an antique look to them, there was the sense that it all hid a technology that was so advanced as to be unimaginable to the two detectives. _This is the most amazing thing I will ever see in my entire life,_ Green thought to himself with absolute certainty as he watched the Doctor bend over the control console, his hands playing quickly over the controls, flipping switches, moving dials, and watching numbers and letters scroll by on a small viewscreen. "Mmm," the Doctor said to himself, frowning. At last he had it. "Washington Square Park," he announced triumphantly.  
"Great, that's in the Village," Briscoe said, heading for the doors. The Doctor looked up at him.  
"I can get you there faster," he said with a grin, patting the control console.  
"Hell yeah!" Green suddenly exclaimed, his eyes alight with excitement. "Let's see what this baby can do!"  
  
  
Several visitors to Washington Square Park turned at the bizarre sound just in time to see a blue police box gradually appearing next to the famous stone arch. Before the blue light on top of the police box had stopped flashing, a man in a long velvet coat emerged, followed by two men in grey trench coats. The seeming elder of the unlikely trio held up a badge at the crowd.  
"Police business," he called out as they walked by. "Nothing to see here." The man with the velvet coat strolled over to the inside of the arch, where he felt along the wall for a moment, and then produced something on a chain, seeming to draw it out of the stone itself. He appeared to insert the object into the solid stone arch, turning it as one would turn a key in a lock. To the crowd's astonishment, a door swung open and the man motioned the two police officers to precede him inside. When the door swung shut behind them, several people wandered over to feel along the wall for themselves, but found no sign of a doorway or a secret hiding place for what could only have been a key. Someone from the crowd speculated that what they had just witnessed was an elaborate piece of performance art, _you know, like the stuff that freaky Ono chick did over in Central Park back in the Seventies._ A group of teenagers who had been smoking a joint quickly threw it to the ground, grinding it out and vowing never to touch marijuana again, _because that stuff really screws with your head, dude._ One brave soul wandered over to the police box and rattled its door, which remained firmly shut against him. His friend tried to deter him; he wouldn't want to be arrested for damaging what was obviously NYPD property, would he? _Look you moron, it says right here, "Police Public Call Box"… and there were cops inside it! Duh!_ After awhile, when nothing new happened, the crowd began to lose interest and disperse. After all, this was New York City; strange things happened here all the time, and odd encounters with inexplicable characters occurred with mind-numbing regularity… just ask anyone who took the train into the city every day!   
  
  
The two detectives peered around the console room, which was much different than the one in the Doctor's TARDIS. The walls in here were etched silver, with deep-set roundels that appeared to be made out of frosted glass and backlit with a light that gave off a soothing lavender glow. The console itself was sleek and modern-looking; every surface was brushed silver, the buttons were all inset plastic, and the displays were all digital. "I take it this is a later model than yours?" Briscoe asked the Doctor, who was staring at a screen on the console, deep in thought.  
"Hmm?" he asked, looking up. "Oh yes, this is a Type 55. A bit more reliable than the Type 40, but somehow lacking the 40's charm, don't you think?"  
"Yeah," Green agreed immediately. "This looks like something you'd see on a low budget sci-fi TV show. _Yours_ looks like a _time machine_!" The Doctor beamed at him appreciatively. "Wait a minute," the detective said suddenly. "We're inside the arch. Are you telling me that the arch has actually been a TARDIS all along?"  
"Oh no," the Doctor said. "It wasn't always a TARDIS. There _is_ an actual arch. She must have materialized her TARDIS around it. You'll find it in here somewhere if you wander around long enough."  
"I thought this is all there is," Briscoe said, indicating the console room with a sweeping gesture.   
"Heavens, no!" the Doctor said, shaking his head. He led them to a door, pushed it open and gestured at what lay beyond. The two detectives hurried over to peer into the long corridor done in the same silver motif with inset roundels backlit with lavender light. They could see several other corridors branching off from the main one and exchanged a glance; searching this place might take a very long time, and they didn't even know what they were looking for. Briscoe sighed.  
"Do either of you notice anything odd about the temperature in here?" the Doctor asked suddenly.  
"No," Green said slowly. "It feels pretty comfortable in here to me."  
"Yeah, me too," Briscoe agreed.  
"Exactly!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Gallifreyans have a normal body temperature much lower than yours, and if I weren't able to regulate my metabolism I'd find it uncomfortably warm in here. She's set the temperature for _human_ comfort. I do the same in my TARDIS, because humans frequently travel with me. Now, why do you suppose _she_ did it, hmm?"  
"She was a museum curator," Briscoe said. "Maybe she took her colleagues on tours through history so they could see it firsthand!"   
"No one we interviewed at the museum mentioned _anything_ like _this_!" Green said, indicating the victim's time machine with a sweep of his hand.   
"So either I'm on the wrong track, or someone thinks they're protecting her by keeping quiet," Briscoe said. He peered up the corridor again. "I guess we should take a look around."  
"Do you think we need a search warrant?" Green asked.  
"Dunno," Briscoe replied, frowning. "Wanna call Jack and ask him if we need a warrant to search an alien time machine that's bigger on the inside than on the outside?"  
"We're gonna need a lot more people," Green said.  
"Do you think the Eye is even in here?" Briscoe asked, addressing this question to the Doctor. The Time Lord shook his head.  
"It's not in here, Detective."  
"Well, we'll still need to search the place. There may be clues here. Now, how're we going to do this?" Briscoe asked. "We can't have twenty or thirty cops filing through a secret door in the arch in the middle of Washington Square! Even in New York, someone's bound to notice something weird is going on!"  
"This is a TARDIS, you know," the Doctor reminded them mildly. "It can be moved, and its exterior will change to fit into nearly any location. Where would you gentlemen like it?" The two detectives exchanged a wicked grin.  
  
  
Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy was lying on the sofa in his office, reading the newspaper and sipping a glass of whiskey when a wheezing, groaning sound suddenly filled the room, and a black filing cabinet materialized out of thin air to stand with apparent solidity right in front of his desk. McCoy sat bolt upright on the sofa and rubbed his eyes, blinking owlishly at the sudden new addition to his office décor.   
"What the hell…?" he muttered, running a hand through his thick graying hair. The front of the filing cabinet suddenly swung open, and a velvet-coated man appeared from inside, followed by a grinning Briscoe and Green.  
"Surprise!" Briscoe exclaimed cheerfully to the flabbergasted attorney. "This is the Doctor," the detective said, indicating the stranger in the green velvet jacket. "Lucky for us, he's from the same planet our murdered curator is from and he's been helping with our investigation. We were tooling around town in his time machine when we decided to bring _hers_ down to the two-seven. Figured it would be easier to search it that way."  
"We thought we'd swing by here first 'cause we're going to need a search warrant for it," Green told McCoy innocently, gesturing at the impossible filing cabinet.  
"And more men," Briscoe added. "A lot more men." McCoy finished his whiskey in one gulp.  
  
  
Continued in Chapter 3  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

  
"Law and Disorder"  
  
  
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: See: Chapter 1.  
  
  
Chapter 3  
  
  
By the time they delivered Doctor Newton's TARDIS and the warrant to search it to the 27th Precinct, it was already dark outside. The detectives decided to call it a day.  
"That was a terribly mean thing to do to that district attorney," the Doctor said from the back seat of Briscoe's car. He grinned at the two detectives. "That poor man didn't know what hit him!"  
"He'll get over it," Green assured him, glancing into the rearview mirror to return the Doctor's grin.   
"Hey, Doc, you and Jack have a lot in common," Briscoe said.   
"How so?" the Time Lord asked.  
"He sleeps with _his_ assistants too!"  
"Very funny," the Doctor said flatly.  
"Here we are," Briscoe said, easing into a parking space near Washington Square Park. The Doctor got out of the car and leaned over into the driver's side window.  
"Is there anything else I can do for you gentlemen tonight?" he asked. Briscoe frowned, a thought suddenly occurring to him.  
"One more question. There aren't any more of these TARDISes lying around the city, are there?" The Doctor shook his head.  
"No, my scanner would have picked them up," he replied.  
"Your TARDIS doesn't work right," Green reminded him. "You said so yourself."  
"The chameleon circuit's shot, but the scanner works just fine."  
"So if another Time Lord killed her, where's his TARDIS?" Briscoe asked. He made a face. "Listen to what I just said. I can't _believe_ I'm asking questions like this."  
"Now that's an _excellent_ question, Detective," the Doctor said thoughtfully, appearing not to have heard Briscoe's lament. "I shall have to give it some very serious thought."  
"You do that," Briscoe said. "And tell us what you come up with."  
"Absolutely," the Doctor agreed. "Until tomorrow, then," he said, turning towards the path that led to his TARDIS. When he reached the police box, he saw that someone had decorated it with a sticker advertising a local death metal band. He peeled it off with a sigh, counting himself lucky that no one had spray painted obscenities on it as well. He entered the console room and began setting coordinates for Angelina's apartment, and then stopped, realizing that Tegan was sure to pounce on him the moment he arrived, and he needed time to organize his thoughts before dealing with her. Instead, he went into the main corridor and headed for his rooms, where he planned to take a long soak in a hot bath. As he walked, he pulled off his velvet jacket and sniffed cautiously at himself, making a face. "You could _use_ a good bath anyway!" he said out loud.  
  
  
Tegan was lying on the living room sofa, deeply engrossed in _Memoirs of a Geisha_ when the TARDIS materialized in its usual corner. She didn't even look up when the doors opened and the Doctor stepped out, wearing tan trousers and a white shirt open at the neck. His hair was still damp from the bath, and he looked refreshed and relaxed.  
"Hello, Tegan," he said cautiously, walking over to where she lay. Without otherwise acknowledging his presence, she moved her legs aside to make room for him to sit. "Ah, yes, the old silent treatment," the Time Lord mused. "That was never really your style though, was it? You always had too much to say to keep it up for long." She looked up from her book to glare at him, and then quickly returned her attention to its pages. "I suppose we all change with age," he continued, wondering vaguely why he was deliberately trying to goad her into a fight. _I must need to have my head examined,_ he thought wryly. _Perhaps I should speak with Doctor Olivet._ "So, would you like to hear about my day, Tegan?" _That_ got a response.  
"No, I would _not_," she spat. "I can _guess_ what your day was like," she continued, sitting up and placing the book on the coffee table in front of the sofa. "It was just like all your other days, wasn't it? You've gotten yourself into some kind of mess and you'll end up being chased by dangerous people or horrible monsters who want to kill you!"  
"Now, Tegan – " he began in a reasonable tone.  
"Don't you understand _anything_, you stupid git?" she fumed, leaning towards him as her anger built. "_This_ sort of thing is why I left you in the first place! I didn't want our child dragged into your dangerous life, and what did you do? You showed up twenty years later and dragged her in anyway!"  
"That's not really fair," he protested. "I never even – "  
"You've gotten her involved in a murder investigation!" she reminded him. The Doctor leaned close to her, using his index finger to punctuate his words as he spoke.  
"She is hardly involved in the – " he began.  
"There are homicide detectives coming to her apartment, Doctor! I'd say that's getting her involved, wouldn't you?"  
"Are you going to let me finish a single sen– "  
"I didn't want this kind of life for her, Doctor. _Your_ kind of life. You may take things like this in stride, but I don't anymore and she _never_ did!"  
"You're overprotective!" he accused, and immediately knew it had been the wrong thing to say.  
"Overprotective!" she practically screamed in his face. "Overprotective! Do you have any idea at all what these past twenty years have been like for me? Always looking over my shoulder for the Master or a Dalek or a Terileptil or God only knows what? Always worried that one of your old enemies might figure out who Angelina is to you and decide to use her to settle old scores?"  
"Ah, yes, you were so worried about it that you let her become an international celebrity!" the Doctor countered sarcastically.  
"Why do you think she doesn't use her last name and doesn't talk about her family to the press? I couldn't lock her in her bedroom for the rest of her life, Doctor! She's got to live her life!"  
"Exactly!" he said, his finger right in her face. "And that makes taking risks!"  
"There's a difference between taking reasonable risks in life and actually choosing to go around with an irresponsible Time Lord who's Trouble's best friend!" she countered hotly. "And don't you point your bloody finger at me!" she yelled, grabbing his hand. Their eyes met and held. They were almost nose-to-nose; the sound of their angry breathing seemed unnaturally loud in the otherwise empty apartment.  
Neither of them was certain how the kiss started, but once their lips touched, they were both lost. The Doctor's arms went around her and she clung to him like a drowning woman, her hands twisting in his soft brown hair as she made incoherent little sounds of pleasure. Though his appearance had changed, his body chemistry had not; the scent of his body and the taste of his mouth were both exactly as she remembered. With her eyes closed, she could almost imagine that she was kissing the man she thought of as _her_ Doctor, the blond cricketer, Angelina's father.   
"Just the same," the Doctor murmured against her lips, echoing her thoughts. "Oh God. Tegan." His hands fumbled at the buttons of her blouse, and she shifted slightly to give him better access, her own hands moving to unbutton his shirt. She pulled his shirt off his shoulders, and then moved her arms to allow him to strip her blouse off and throw it on the floor to join his shirt. They managed to accomplish all of this without breaking their kiss, as though both of them were worried that doing so would break the spell they seemed to have fallen under. The Doctor fumbled with her bra clasp and finally managed to get that garment off as well, and Tegan was working on his zipper when –  
"Oh my God!" Angelina exclaimed in a voice that managed to sound astounded, appalled, and utterly revolted all at the same time.  
"Angelina!" the Doctor exclaimed in surprise. "And Detective Munch!" he continued, grabbing his shirt from the floor and throwing it over the mortified Tegan, who had crossed her arms over her bare chest. There was a very long silence.  
"I thought you said they fight all the time," Munch said in a dry voice. "At least they're not fighting." Angelina put a hand over her eyes.  
"I don't believe this," she muttered, stalking off towards the kitchen. In the living room, there was another awkward silence.  
"Nice to see you again, Doctor," Munch finally said.  
"Yes, you too, Detective," the Doctor replied in an odd voice, running a hand through his tangled hair.   
"And, uh, nice to meet you, Miss Jovanka," Munch continued awkwardly.   
"Likewise," Tegan mumbled. "I hope you'll forgive me if I don't shake hands." He nodded, not looking at her. Angelina returned to the living room carrying an open bottle of wine and some wine glasses. She set the wine down on the coffee table and very pointedly held up _two_ glasses for her parents to see.  
"I think we're being told to clear off," Tegan told the Doctor, rising and clutching his shirt around her.  
"You're not going to leave her alone with him, are you?" the Doctor protested.  
"I am twenty years old," Angelina told him in a frosty voice. "I was told you knew how to count. And I don't think _you_ really have any room to say much at the moment, have you? A girl would be safer with Munch than with _you_, obviously!"  
"Come on, Doctor," Tegan said quietly. "Let's go. Trust me, the mood she's in now, you don't want to wind her up any further!" Sighing, he rose and headed for his TARDIS.  
"Oh no you don't!" Angelina said immediately.   
'What?" the Doctor asked innocently.  
"You're not going in that blue box so you can sit in there and watch us on the viewscreen! I wasn't born yesterday, you know." The Doctor's eyes widened in surprise; clearly Angelina had accurately worked out his intentions. Tegan hid a smile behind her hand. "If you two want to carry on like randy teenagers," Angelina continued, pointing at the hallway "you have my mother's room and two guest bedrooms to choose from. Go in _there_ and do it behind closed doors where no one can see you, and for God's sake, _don't_ tell me about it later, because I _don't_ want to know!" Sheepishly, Tegan and the Doctor headed for the hallway, with Angelina's voice following them as they left. "Honestly, _you_ are the ones who are supposed to walk in on scenes like the one I just witnessed, not the other way around!" She paused for a moment, and Munch saw her eyes widen as what was obviously a horrifying thought suddenly occurred to her. She hurried partway up the hall towards the bedrooms where Munch heard her yell, "And for the love of God, use a bloody _condom_, would you?"  
"I'm surprised you didn't ground them for a week, too," Munch said dryly when she returned.   
"I probably should've, yeah?" Angelina replied, laughing. She moved to sit on the sofa and motioned him over to join her. As he sat down next to her, she poured the wine and handed him a glass. She shifted slightly on the sofa, and her foot encountered something on the floor. She used her foot to lift it off the floor and into view. It was her mother's bra. "Bloody hell!" she swore, kicking it across the room. Munch laughed.  
"We never want to think of our parents that way, do we?" he asked, taking a sip of the strong red wine.  
"Too right!" she agreed, rubbing a hand across her forehead, her eyes wide. "I'm scarred for life by what I saw tonight!"  
"Try not to think about it," he advised.  
"You're right," she said briskly, taking a sip of wine and leaning back against the sofa. "I'm going to put it right out of my mind." She gave him her dazzling supermodel smile. "Perhaps you could help." Munch looked down at his wineglass.  
"You don't think I'm too old for you?" She shook her head. He raised his head and looked her in the eye. "And _your parents_ don't think I'm too old for you?" he pressed. She snorted.  
"Listen, my mother is forty-three. My father is over eleven hundred years old. If either of them say one single word about you, I shall have _plenty_ to say in return."   
"Well, when you put it _that_ way…" Munch said, taking her wineglass and setting it down on the coffee table with his own.  
Her lips were cool and soft and tasted like wine.  
  
  
"Hey Lennie!" Green called, racing to catch up with his partner. Briscoe stopped walking and turned. "Did you see this?" Green asked, holding up the morning's _Post_. On the cover was a picture of the supermodel Angelina grasping a man's arm as they tried to duck out of a restaurant without being photographed. The headline read _Angelina's New Mystery Man_.  
"That's Munch!" Lennie crowed with a huge grin. When they entered the squad room, they immediately saw that someone had posted the cover picture on the bulletin board. Some wag had crossed out the words " mystery man" in the headline and substituted "Munch" in red marker so that the headline now read _Angelina's New Munch_. A uniformed officer approached the two detectives.  
"They're getting ready to start the search on your filing cabinet over there," the uniform said, pointing at Doctor Newton's TARDIS, which the Doctor had materialized in a convenient corner the previous night. "A guy came by lookin' for youse guys," he continued. "I told him you weren't here yet. He unlocked the filing cabinet for us so's we could begin the search, but he took something out. Now it's all dark in there." Briscoe and Green exchanged a frown.  
"What'd this guy look like?" Briscoe asked.   
"Kinda wild brown hair. He was wearin' this velvet coat, too. Looked pretty weird. Oh yeah, he said he'd be across the street at Dunkin' Donuts, and you should join him when you get here. And he left you his _calling card_," the uniform concluded with a smirk to indicate what he thought of guys with snooty accents who dressed like they'd stepped out of a Dickens novel and left calling cards. He dug around in his pocket and finally produced the card, which he handed to Green. "And that's all I know."  
"Thanks," Briscoe said. "Up for some coffee?" he asked his partner. Green nodded absently, studying the card the uniform had given him. "You're buyin'," Briscoe informed him, clapping him on the shoulder.  
"Lennie, look at this," he said, handing the card to Briscoe. It was about the size of a business card, made of thick white paper that was obviously high quality. It was blank except for two familiar Greek letters printed in black in the very middle.  
  
  
The Doctor sat at a table in Dunkin' Donuts, nursing his cup of tea and doing the _New York Times_ crossword puzzle in pen. He was aware of people around him reading the _New York Post_ with the picture of his daughter and her "mystery man" on the front cover, and smiled to himself.  
He had woken early that morning (alone, in one of the guest rooms) and padded out to the living room bare-footed and bare-chested (Tegan had still had his shirt) to find Angelina and Munch sitting on the sofa together, absorbed in a lively discussion about some obscure German art film that he had never heard of; evidently Munch was quite the foreign film connoisseur. There had been an empty wine bottle and two half-filled wine glasses on the coffee table in front of them, and he'd noted with some relief that they were both fully clothed; obviously the night had been spent in conversational rather than carnal pursuits. He had greeted them, receiving a rather frigid reception from Angelina (who still hadn't forgiven him for embarrassing her the night before) and padded into his TARDIS to prepare for the day ahead.  
"What's this?" Briscoe's voice asked, breaking his reverie. He looked down at his crossword to see that the detective had tossed his calling card down on the middle of it. He looked up to see Briscoe and Green standing over him.  
"Good morning, Detectives. Lovely day, isn't it?" Briscoe and Green remained on their feet, staring down at him with what he recognized as the _police look_. He picked up his calling card and held it up. "This is my calling card. I left it for you at the station." He leaned back in his seat and waited to see if any explanation for their abrupt change in behavior was forthcoming.  
"What do those letters mean?" Green asked. The Doctor blinked.  
"They're Greek letters – " he began.  
"Yeah, a theta and a sigma," Briscoe said, pronouncing it _thayta_. "We looked it up. It's not a word. What's it mean?"  
"Oh, do have a seat," the Doctor said, sounding annoyed. "You're making me nervous, standing over me like that. Although I suppose that's the idea. All right. Theta Sigma is one of my names."  
"Theeta?" Green tried out. "Theeta Sigma? That's your _name_?"  
"One of them," he agreed. The detectives exchanged a look. Briscoe removed a diary from his pocket, opened it to the last entry, and put it down on the table in front of the Doctor, who blinked in surprise as Briscoe's finger pointed at the "theta sigma" with the emphatic red circle around it. "Well, now I see what's got you so upset," he murmured. He looked up at them. "Eva's diary, I take it?" They nodded.  
"Any idea why your name's circled in red right after her last entry?" Briscoe asked. The Doctor shook his head.  
"None at all. I'd have to read it."  
"The brains in linguistics haven't been able to do anything with it," Green told him.  
"I wouldn't think they could," the Doctor replied. "It's in Gallifreyan."  
"And you can read it?" Briscoe asked.   
"Of course!" Briscoe and Green finally sat.  
"Start reading," Green said. "Out loud. In English." The Doctor gave them a cold look. When he finally spoke, it was in a voice they'd never heard from him before: the icy tones of an angry Time Lord of Gallifrey.  
"I shall swallow my indignation at being suspected of murdering an old friend, gentlemen, and instead remind you that I have an alibi for the time she was killed. I was at a fashion show, as Angelina, Tegan, and quite a few other people could tell you." The Doctor's eyes had changed, becoming cold and hard and utterly alien. Green forced himself to say what had just occurred to him.  
"You have a time machine – " he began.  
" – and I could have popped back and murdered her after the fashion show. Is that what you were going to say, Detective Green?" His icy blue gaze settled on Green, and the detective suddenly found himself wanting the Doctor to go back to being their smiling, cheerful, seemingly all-knowing companion from the day before, the man who'd explained the inexplicable and opened their eyes to a whole new incredible universe. "I suppose I could have," the Time Lord continued. "Except that it would have broken at least four or five Laws of Time."  
"Murderers usually don't care about breaking other laws, Doctor Sigma," Briscoe reminded him. Now it was his turn to be fixed with that icy alien stare; as hardened as he was by the awful things that he'd seen and the terrible people that he'd met as a homicide detective, Briscoe only _just_ managed not to squirm in his seat.  
"Even the Master, the greatest criminal our race has ever produced, was bound by and obeyed the Laws of Time. Yes, he tried to steal the Eye to alter the course of history, but without it to guide him, he obeyed the Laws. To do otherwise is to court disaster." Briscoe let out a heavy sigh.  
"Sorry, Doc," the older detective said. "It's _our job_ to be suspicious." The Time Lord's icy demeanor melted away as quickly as it had appeared.  
"I understand," he said wearily. "I haven't exactly been forthcoming with information, and I'm sure that I would be exactly the same if I were in your position. Now, let's see what Eva had to say about me, shall we?"  
"Maybe she had a secret crush," Briscoe cracked. The Doctor's eyebrows went up. The detective shrugged. "Well, it's a diary, right?"   
"Someone's torn out some pages," the Doctor noted as he flipped through the diary.  
"Yeah, we saw that," Green said. The Doctor turned to the first page and began to read. "I'll get us some coffee," the detective said, standing. "Would you like another cup of tea?" he asked the Doctor.   
"Yes, please," he replied absently, turning the page. Green headed for the counter to order their drinks, and Briscoe picked up the Doctor's newspaper and began to read. By the time Green returned to the table with a tray laden with drinks and doughnuts, the Doctor was closing the diary and setting it aside, a thoughtful look on his face.  
"You read fast," Green said, putting the tray down. He sat down next to Briscoe, removed the lid from one of the coffees, and took a sip.   
"Most of us do," the Doctor replied, reaching for his tea. "No mention of the Eye," he said with a sigh. "And I'm not certain why _my _name was brought into this. In the last entry, she mentioned wanting to contact the High Council, but there wasn't any reference to me in there at all… not there or in the rest of the diary.   
"Maybe she was just doodling while thinking about an old school chum," Briscoe suggested.  
"Perhaps."  
"Or you got a mention in the torn out pages," Green added. The Doctor shrugged.  
"Possibly. Speculation is useless. By the way, who's Andrew Parker?"   
"One of Newton's coworkers," Green replied. "He was at the crime scene yesterday, remember Lennie?" Briscoe nodded, his mouth full of doughnut. "Why?"  
"What was he like?" the Doctor asked.  
"A typical museum nerd," Briscoe answered, taking a sip of coffee. "He seemed really upset about her death."  
"I'd think he would be," the Doctor said. "Evidently they were having an affair." Briscoe choked on his coffee.  
"Parker and Newton?" he asked, shaking his head. "Well, I guess it's not as weird as your daughter and Munch. The women of your species must not pick 'em based on looks!"  
"Hey Lennie, maybe _you_ should go to Gallifrey… you might actually stand a chance there!" Green said. Briscoe crumpled up a napkin and threw it at his partner.  
"No, no, the women of my species don't 'pick 'em' _at all_, Detective," the Doctor was saying.  
"Arranged marriage?" Green asked. The Doctor shook his head.  
"_No_ marriage. Time Lords reproduce asexually… well, _most_ do," he amended wryly.  
"I dunno, Doc… reproduction without sex… that sounds a lot like marriage to me!" Briscoe cracked.  
"I'm telling you, Lennie," Green said, "you'd fit right in on Gallifrey. No marriage, no sex…" Briscoe threw another napkin at him.  
"We _do_ have the technology to slow the aging process…" the Doctor added with a grin, earning a napkin of his own right between the eyes. "…and it was even developed expressly for a human!"  
"Who said he's a human?" Green asked curiously.   
"If you morons are done fooling around, I think we have a time-traveling filing cabinet to search," Briscoe said, coming to his feet and pitching his empty coffee cup in the trash.  
"You know, he just called you a moron," Green informed the Doctor, as though the Time Lord hadn't heard.   
"I've been called worse," he replied with a shrug. "Come on," he said, standing. "Detective Briscoe is right; we have a TARDIS to search."  
"And then we'd better drop by the museum and have another chat with Studley," Briscoe added dryly, picking up Newton's diary and stuffing it in his pocket.  
"Another action-packed day," Green mused, finishing his coffee and rising to follow.  
  
  
Continued in Chapter 4  
  



	4. Chapter 4

  
"Law and Disorder"  
  
  
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: See: Chapter 1.  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: "Lieu" = nickname for "lieutenant".  
  
  
Chapter 4  
  
  
"I've got twenty uniforms in there, and it's _still_ going to take _days_ to search that thing," Lieutenant Van Buren said as the two detectives and the Doctor entered the squad room.   
"We _told_ you," Briscoe reminded her.  
"Hello again, Doctor," Van Buren said. "I hear you removed something from that filing cabinet this morning, and all the lights dimmed."  
"Oh yes," the Doctor said, rummaging in his pockets and coming up with a component. "I removed the main space-time element."  
"And why would you do that?" she asked. His eyebrows went up.  
"Because," the Doctor said slowly, "that filing cabinet is actually a vehicle that can journey to any time or place in the Universe. There was no other way to guarantee that one of your officers might not succumb to the temptation to play around with the controls in there and send himself and the rest of his fellow officers on an unscheduled trip to parts and times unknown." Van Buren thought for a moment, and then nodded.  
"All right, Doctor. Thanks for your vigilance," she said. He shrugged, and handed her the component.   
"You can hold onto this if you like," he told her. Suddenly, a wheezing, groaning sound filled the squad room, and the Doctor spun around in shock.  
The filing cabinet was still there.  
Nothing new appeared to have been added to the squad room.   
The Doctor's mouth opened and then closed, and he brought a hand up to his chin, lowering his head in thought.  
"Hey, Doc – " Briscoe began. The Doctor's head jerked up, his eyes alight with sudden comprehension. He said something in that flowing liquid language that Briscoe and Green recognized from their victim's tape recorder; by his tone, it was obviously a curse.  
"I don't know how I could have been so stupid," the Time Lord muttered, dashing towards the filing cabinet. Exchanging a puzzled glance, the two detectives and Van Buren followed to find him standing in the darkened console room, both hands resting on the control console. "Detectives, if you were Time Lords, where would you hide a TARDIS?" he asked.  
"Search me," Briscoe said with a shrug. Green was actually thinking about the question.  
"If I were a Time Lord," the detective said slowly, "I'd be hiding it from other Time Lords… who could track it on scanners in their own TARDISes… so I'd want to hide it near another TARDIS to confuse them… or _in_ another TARDIS!" he finished triumphantly.  
"Exactly!" the Doctor said with an approving grin. "The killer's TARDIS - and presumably the killer himself - were right under our collective noses all this time! Lieutenant, may I have that main space-time element, please?" Wordlessly, Van Buren handed it back to him and watched as he knelt and replaced it in a recess on the underside of the control console. Immediately, the lights came back up and there was a sound that made her think of a computer coming back on line. He stood, flipped a switch on the control console, and began to speak. "Attention, everyone," he said, his voice filling the console room and echoing through the corridors and rooms of the TARDIS. "This is the Doctor speaking. We're all going on a little trip, at the end of which I hope the lot of you can arrest the person who murdered Doctor Newton. In the meantime, just continue doing what ever you're doing now." He motioned to Van Buren, indicating that she should say something.  
"This is Lieutenant Van Buren," she said, and paused for a moment, listening to her voice echoing through the TARDIS. "Just keep gathering evidence and we'll let you know if there are any new developments." She shrugged, not knowing what else to say, and the Doctor nodded. "Van Buren out," she finished, and the Doctor flipped a switch. "Where are we going?" she asked, as the Time Lord's hands flew over the controls.  
"What is it they always say in the movies?" he asked without looking up from his work. "Follow that TARDIS!" he exclaimed, hitting a switch. The column in the middle of the control console lit up and began moving.  
"They _never_ say _that_ in the movies, Doc," Briscoe informed him.   
"Well, 'Follow that car!' didn't seem applicable to this situation," the Doctor replied with a shrug. A uniformed officer emerged from the doorway leading to the main corridor.  
"Where are we going?" he asked.  
"No idea," the Doctor told him, peering at a monitor. "I'll tell you when we get there."  
"Who _is_ this guy?" the uniform asked his lieutenant.  
"The Doctor," she replied, as though it were obvious.  
"Who?" he asked.  
"Theta Sigma," Green supplied.  
"Thete to friends," the Time Lord said absently, still watching the monitor. Suddenly, as though just realizing what he'd said, he looked up. "But that was a very long time ago, and I prefer 'Doctor' now if it's all the same to you," he said in a pleasant but firm voice.   
"Sure, Doc," Briscoe agreed. "Whatever you say." On the other hand, Green looked like he was wondering what he'd have to do to be invited to call the Doctor "Thete". There was a chime, and the column stopped moving.  
"We've arrived," the Doctor said briskly.  
"Where?" Van Buren asked. He consulted a readout on the console.  
"Marna Locus IV. Ever been?"  
"Are you kidding?" Van Buren asked. "I come here all the time!"  
"Hmm." He turned a knob, and a viewscreen on the opposite side of the room slid open to reveal a desolate, barren landscape with aqua-colored skies, cyan-colored sand, and dark blue rocks.  
"It's beautiful," Van Buren said softly.  
"Yes," the Doctor agreed. "And deadly. The atmosphere's pure chlorine gas."  
"So I guess we're not going out for a stroll," the uniform said.  
"I would advise against it," the Doctor said.  
"The killer can't go out there either," Green said. "Right?"  
"I suppose he _could_," the Time Lord replied musingly. "If he used his respiratory bypass system and kept his eyes shut. Not much fun in that, though, is there?"  
"Tough to see the sights with your eyes closed," Briscoe agreed.  
"Now, where _is_ that pesky TARDIS?" the Doctor murmured to himself, his head bent over a monitor. "Ah ha! _There_ you are." He quickly set coordinates and the center column began moving again. "Short hop," he said at his companions' questioning looks. A tall blue rock suddenly appeared in the console room, and the console chimed. "Our killer's TARDIS."  
"With our killer inside," Green added.  
"That's the idea," the Doctor agreed.  
"Sanders," Van Buren said. The uniform turned. "Go get more officers," she told him. He nodded and left the console room. The Doctor crossed the console room and rapped soundly on the rock.  
"I believe the phrase is, 'Come out with your hands up!'" he called out. Nothing happened. Briscoe and Green came forward, their guns drawn.  
"Why don't you let us handle this part, Doc?" Briscoe asked.   
"Hmm," the Doctor said, drawing his TARDIS key from his pocket and inserting it smoothly into the rock. A door swung open, and he began to enter.  
"Ladies first," Van Buren said quietly. She moved forward, her gun drawn and a determined expression on her face. The Doctor's eyebrows went up.  
"By all means," he agreed. He followed the three police officers into the other TARDIS's console room. It was empty. Green hurried to the interior door, standing to one side and motioning for the others to join him. The Doctor knelt and removed the main space-time element from the control console. "Whoever the killer is, he won't be going anywhere now," he said as he stood up and pocketed the component. Van Buren nodded silently in approval and pushed the door open with one hand, Briscoe and Green covering her in case the killer was lying in wait with a weapon on the other side.  
There was no one in the corridor.  
Several uniformed officers of both genders suddenly arrived in the console room, led by Officer Sanders. Van Buren motioned them forward with a jerk of her head.  
"Let's go," she said quietly.   
"We'd better leave someone here to guard the main door so that the killer doesn't double back and escape into Eva's TARDIS while we're occupied with looking for him," the Doctor said. Van Buren nodded and made the assignment. Then, with the lieutenant in the lead, the odd assortment of detectives, officers, and one lone Time Lord entered the killer's lair.  
  
  
"In here!" one of the officers called, and everyone hurried towards the sound of his voice. It was Sanders, they all saw, and he was holding the killer at gunpoint. It was a woman, tall and slender, with thick brunette hair that spilled down in dark waves over the shoulders of her skintight silver jumpsuit. Though her hands were raised, she stood tall and proud, her head held high and a defiant expression on her face.  
"Well, well, well," the Doctor said softly. "If it isn't another old classmate of mine." She looked him up and down, her dark eyes narrowing.  
"New body, Theta?" she asked, her voice dripping with scorn. "You're rather careless with them, aren't you? Though I must say it's a definite improvement over the last one. Those muddied genes of yours are a replication error just waiting to happen; I'm actually amazed that you've managed so many regenerations without some sort of nasty recessive lethal rearing its ugly head!" She gave him a malicious smile. "What a shame that would be."  
"Charming as always," the Doctor replied evenly. "Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the Rani?"  
"Nice ta meetcha," Briscoe said, striding over to her, capturing her hands and cuffing them behind her back. "Rani, you're under arrest for the murder of Eva Newton." He grabbed one of her arms, Green grabbed the other, and they began to lead her away. "You have the right to remain silent – "  
"I remember when your mother died!" the Rani called out over her shoulder in a mocking voice as the two detectives led her from the room. "She was _old_, Theta. So _old_. Such a terrible shame! But of course she was _only human_, wasn't she?" This last was punctuated with a merry laugh. "Tell me, is it true that your father had to _beg_ the Prydonians to let you into the Academy because – "  
"You have the right to remain _silent_, bitch!" Green snarled at her, pulling her out of the room with more force than was strictly necessary, a glowering Briscoe following closely behind. Something in the detectives' eyes made her decide to exercise her right to silence immediately. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law!" Green continued. "You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand these rights?" No response. Green gave her a rough shake. _"Do you?"_ She nodded. "Good," he said, dragging her down the corridor. After they'd gone, Van Buren turned slowly to look at the Doctor. His face was unreadable; after a long moment, he took a deep breath and met her eye.  
"For your own safety and the safety of your officers, make certain she is thoroughly searched," he said in a quiet voice that shook only a little. "Strip searched. Every nook and cranny, as they say. And even then, be very careful of her." Van Buren nodded. Without another word, the Time Lord strode through the crowd of police officers and out of the room.  
  
  
"Here we are," the Doctor said quietly as the center column came to a stop and a soft chime sounded. Despite efforts from both Briscoe and Green to engage him in conversation, he hadn't spoken at all during the journey back to Earth and the 27th Precinct. Van Buren laid a hand on his velveted arm.  
"Thank you for all your help, Doctor," she said warmly. He nodded without looking at her and pushed a knob on a curved stick into the console. Immediately, the main doors swung open behind them. Several uniformed officers with the Rani in tow appeared from the interior of the TARDIS. The Time Lady's dark gaze fell upon the Doctor, who had both hands on the console and was leaning against it, his head bent over a monitor. She started to say something, but a quick glance at the expression on Detective Green's face quickly stilled her tongue. She cast her eyes downward in apparent meekness and allowed herself to be led away. With a glance at Briscoe and Green, Van Buren followed. The Doctor hit the door switch and began setting coordinates.  
"What's our next stop, Doc? Jupiter?" Briscoe asked. The Doctor hit a switch, setting the center column in motion, and looked up at the detective.  
"You wouldn't like Jupiter much," he said shortly. "It's entirely gaseous."  
"Sounds like Lennie after lunch at Taco Bell," Green said, hoping for a laugh or even a smile from the Time Lord. He was disappointed. The large blue rock disappeared and the center column stopped with a chime.   
"Everybody out," the Doctor said, hitting the door switch.  
"Where are we?" Briscoe asked.  
"Still back at your precinct. I've just moved this TARDIS so that the Rani's TARDIS isn't inside it."  
"Why?" Green asked, as much for curiosity's sake as to keep him talking.  
"A TARDIS in a TARDIS is a recipe for eventual disaster," the Doctor replied, bending to remove the main space-time element from under the console. He pocketed the component and left the TARDIS without another word. The two detectives exchanged a look, and then followed.  
"Let me handle this, Ed," Briscoe said quietly to Green. He moved ahead to catch up with the Doctor as they exited the TARDIS. "Hey Doc," he called. The Time Lord kept walking, apparently heading out of the squad room. "Doc! Doctor! Damn it… hey Thete!" The Doctor stopped walking and turned, his face expressionless. "Yeah, I thought that'd get your attention," Briscoe said, finally catching up with him. "C'mere." He motioned for the Doctor to follow him. "Hey Lieu," Briscoe said to Van Buren, "mind if we use your office for a minute?"  
"Be my guest," she replied. Briscoe waved the Doctor inside and followed, closing the door. The Time Lord folded his arms across his chest and watched with detachment as the detective leaned casually against the desk and gave him a penetrating stare. Finally, Briscoe spoke. "Know anything about Judaism?" The Doctor shrugged.  
"A bit."  
"My dad was Jewish, and I was raised Jewish," Briscoe continued. "But my mom was Catholic. Know what that makes me?" The Time Lord shrugged again.  
"A detective?" Briscoe was tricked into a laugh.  
"It makes me not really Jewish… at least not under Jewish law. See, Judaism is traced through the maternal bloodline." The Doctor blinked.  
"That's ridiculous," he said, and immediately realized that he'd insulted the other man's religion. "I'm sorry. What I mean is – "  
"I know what you mean," Briscoe said. "Our actions and our beliefs are more important than what kind of blood flows through our veins… or they _should_ be."  
"Muddied genes," the Doctor murmured just loud enough for Briscoe to hear. "After all these years, it still stings."  
"So do 'kike' and 'Jew boy'," Briscoe said with a shrug. "I'm a cop and you're a Time Lord. We suck it up and move on."  
"You don't understand, Detective Briscoe," the Doctor said quietly. "I'm not _supposed_ to feel stung. I'm a Time Lord; I'm not _supposed_ to feel much of anything. That I do is my failing."  
"I thought you were a Gallifreyan, not a Vulcan!"  
"What's a Vulcan?" the Doctor asked curiously. Briscoe laughed.  
"Listen, Doc, I remember that speech you gave on the phone yesterday to that mope who was bugging your daughter. I remember all the things you told him you'd done, and I also remember you saying later that your people have some pretty strong feelings about noninterference. My guess is that while the exalted pureblood Time Lords are sitting around on their fat asses eating peeled grapes, you're running around saving the Universe. Am I right?" The Doctor shrugged.  
"Something like that."  
"Actions and beliefs, not blood. Remember? And if you didn't feel much of anything, you'd be just another Time Lord sitting around Gallifrey on your fat ass eating peeled grapes." Something about that last bit – the mental picture, perhaps – earned a small smile from the Doctor.  
"My ass is not fat," he said quietly.  
"Keep hanging around with cops and eating doughnuts for breakfast every day and see what happens!" The Doctor's lips twitched as though he were holding back a laugh. Briscoe stood and clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, Doc, let's go," he said. "And remember: Suck it up. Don't let that bitch's _mishegas_ get to you, because that's exactly what she wants." The Doctor nodded gravely.  
"You know, my mother's name was Susan," the Doctor said. Briscoe paused, his hand on the doorknob. "Susan Myerson."  
"Why, that makes you a better Jew than _I_ am, Thete," Briscoe said mildly, and this time the Doctor _did_ laugh. "You ready to go see Studley?"  
"Who?"  
"Andrew Parker. The _shlemazel_ who was _shtupping_ Eva Newton."  
  
  
Their trip to the museum proved to be a waste of time. They were told that Andrew Parker had departed the previous day shortly after learning of his co-worker's death and had not been heard from since; presumably he was in shock and/or mourning. However, a secretary had helpfully provided the address the museum had on file for him.  
"Whaddya know," Briscoe had said without surprise upon seeing it. "The Village, right near Washington Square."  
They were in Briscoe's car, circling Parker's apartment building looking for a parking space when the Doctor let out a yelp of surprise.  
"The Eye!" he exclaimed, sounding excited. "It's here!" Briscoe hurriedly located a spot and parked the car.  
"You think Parker has it?" Green asked as they exited the car and headed for the apartment building. The Doctor nodded.  
"Apartment 315," Briscoe reminded them as they entered the building. They located the steps and took them two at a time up to the third floor; apartment 315 was only two doors down from the stairs.  
"Mister Parker!" Briscoe called, pounding on the door while holding his badge up to the peephole. "It's Detective Briscoe and Detective Green. Are you in there?" After a moment, the door opened and Parker appeared. He was wearing a bathrobe and slippers and was in need of a shave. He wasn't wearing his glasses, and he peered owlishly up at Briscoe, squinting. "We met at the museum yesterday," the detective reminded him helpfully.  
"Oh yeah," Parker said, not sounding particularly enthusiastic. The Doctor didn't bother waiting for an introduction.  
"You have the Eye of Rassilon!" he said excitedly. Parker's eyes widened in surprise, and then he squinted in the Doctor's direction.  
"Are you Theta Sigma?" he asked. The Doctor blinked.  
"Yes… yes I am," he replied.  
"Oh thank God!" Parker said with feeling. "Come in, all of you," he invited, motioning them into the small apartment and shutting the door. "Let me find my glasses," he continued, squinting around until he located them on a coffee table next to an orange tabby cat who sat licking her paw. He went to a bookshelf and pulled down a small pink globe resting on a black marble base. "Take the damn thing," he said, offering it to the Doctor. "I don't want it!" The Doctor glanced at Briscoe and Green.  
"Could one of you take it?" he asked. "I don't want to touch it. If I do…"  
"What'll happen?" Briscoe asked curiously.  
"It will come alive and show us all of Time – past, present, and future."  
"I wouldn't mind that," Green said. The Doctor shook his head.  
"No one should have that knowledge. It's too dangerous."  
"All right, I'll take it," Briscoe said, doing so. "Where should I put it?"  
"I think I have a grocery bag under the sink you could put it in," Parker said, going into his kitchen, where they heard him rummaging. "Yep," he said, returning to the living room with it. "Here it is," he said, offering it to Briscoe.  
"I'm putting the most dangerous object in the Universe – which turned out to be a pink snow globe – in a _Key Food bag_," the detective said as he put the Eye into the plastic bag and tied it shut, "It's only ten o'clock in the morning and that's not even the strangest thing that's happened so far today!"  
"Welcome to my life," the Doctor said wearily. Parker motioned for them to sit on the sofa, taking a seat across from them in an easy chair. Another cat, this one a calico, immediately jumped into his lap and made herself at home. Parker stroked her absently as they talked.  
"You don't know how glad I am to see you, Mister Sigma!" Parker told the Doctor.  
"Doctor," the Time Lord corrected quietly.  
"Oh… I'm sorry," Parker apologized. "Doctor Sigma."  
"No, just Doctor, please." A small brown cat just out of kittenhood jumped up on the sofa and found the Doctor's lap. "And what made you think I would be coming?" he asked, petting the cat, who purred with contentment.  
"Eva said she was going to contact the High Council and ask them to send for you," Parker replied. "You're the only one she trusted to take the Eye back to Gallifrey."  
"I'm flattered."  
"Why did she want to do that?" Green asked suddenly, leaning forward in his seat. "I thought they sent the Eye here to hide it!"  
"Yeah, well someone found it!" Parker said. "And they killed her to get it!"  
"Why didn't you tell us any of this yesterday?" Green asked. Parker gave him a look.  
"If I had told you she was a Time Lady who was killed for an alien artifact she'd been sent here to protect, would you have believed me?"  
"Good point," Green allowed.  
"We have a suspect in custody," Briscoe said. "Calls herself 'the Rani' – that name ring any bells?"   
"No," Parker replied with a frown, shaking his head. "Eva kept talking about someone named Roe."  
"Rho," the Doctor said quietly. "Rho Nu. The Rani." Parker blinked.  
"Nu?" he asked, looking stunned. "Eva was Eta Nu. They were related?"  
"In a manner of speaking."  
"Do all of you people have names that sound like frat houses?" Briscoe asked the Doctor.  
"Oh, they have other names too," Parker told the detective. "With about a thousand syllables that you can't remember and weird sounds that you can't pronounce!"  
"You have one of those?" Green asked the Doctor, who nodded silently. "What is it?"  
_ "Never mind,"_ the Time Lord said firmly.  
"You're no fun, Doc," Briscoe told him.   
"I know," he said. He turned his attention back to Parker. "Why did she give you the Eye?"  
"I insisted," he replied. "She was so worried that it was going to fall into the wrong hands. I told her no one would ever look for it here. Who would think someone like _me_ would have something like _that_?"  
"Someone like you?" the Doctor asked.  
"Look at me, Doctor," Parker said. "Have you ever seen a more insignificant person in your life? People usually just ignore me. Eva was the first woman who ever…" His voice broke and he used a finger to wipe at his eyes behind his glasses. "Look at that picture on the table next to you," he invited when he'd regained his composure somewhat. The Doctor picked it up and inspected it. It showed Parker – small, balding, nerdy – with his arm around a taller woman with long ash blonde hair and beautiful, delicate features. They were an apparent mismatch, the bookish-looking little nerd and his tall blonde bombshell, but their eyes shone with identical happiness where they stood silhouetted against the sun setting behind a Ferris wheel on the beach. "That was taken last summer at Coney Island," Parker said. "We'd just gotten off the Ferris wheel where Eva had kissed me and told me she loved me. That was the happiest day of my life."  
"I never knew her in that body," the Doctor murmured, his fingers touching the glass over the photograph. Briscoe's cell phone rang, and he excused himself to the next room to answer it.  
"She took me everywhere. We watched history happen. She always said that she loved to see the look in my eyes when we watched a momentous event happen or met a historical figure. We visited King Tutankhamen's court; we sat in the audience with Mozart when one of his greatest pieces was performed for the first time in public; we attended Queen Victoria's coronation; we dined at the White House with President Lincoln, and we were in the audience at Ford's Theatre when he was shot by John Wilkes Booth. And she took me other places, too. We walked on other worlds whose suns' light haven't yet reached the Earth, and visited alien civilizations both more primitive and far in advance of our own. But there was one place she refused to take me."  
"Where?" the Doctor asked, still staring at the picture in his hands.  
"Her world, Doctor. Your world. Gallifrey." The Doctor's head came up. "She said that her people wouldn't approve, wouldn't even _understand_, and that she wouldn't subject me to their scorn and their mockery and their condescension. She said that I had taught her the most important thing she'd ever learned, how to love, and that she couldn't repay that with the reception she knew I'd get from the Time Lords." He met the Doctor's eye. "She said she'd seen it happen before." The Time Lord nodded silently. "She said she'd stay here with me, even allow her body to age in time with mine. Her one regret was that she couldn't give me children, but I told her it didn't matter to me as long as I had her. We were even going to get married." He shifted the cat on his lap to dig around in the pocket of his bathrobe, producing a small box in the distinctive light green of Tiffany & Co. He pulled the lid off the box and removed the smaller velveted box inside. "I spent my whole savings on this," he said, opening the velveted box on its hinges to display the sparkling diamond ring. When he spoke again, his voice broke. "It was worth it." Briscoe came back into the living room, flipping his phone shut.  
"That was Doctor Rodgers," he said. "The M.E.'s office is releasing Eva Newton's body today." He looked at the Doctor. "I guess you'll want to claim it." The Doctor shook his head.  
"No," he said in a soft voice. "Mister Parker should claim her body; he was her fiancé." He set the picture of the happy couple back on its table and rose to his feet. "Come on," he said quietly to Parker. "You've got to get yourself together and make yourself presentable. We're going to take her body back to Gallifrey, and God help the person who dares slight you in _my_ presence."  
  
  
Continued in Chapter 5  
  
  
  



	5. Chapter 5

  
"Law and Disorder"  
  
  
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: See: Chapter 1.  
  
Chapter 5  
  
  
People who live in New York – especially the brave men and women who serve on its police force – quickly become accustomed to new things; even the most extraordinary events rapidly acquire the dullness of the commonplace when blunted with repetition.  
Few people in the 27th Precinct even looked up from their desks when the distinctive sound of a materializing TARDIS filled the air. One policewoman glanced up and remarked to her partner _Hey, that's a different one!_ but otherwise no one really paid much attention. A couple of people did wave in greeting at the man in the green frock coat who stepped out of the police box, and he returned their waves with a smile and a few quick words of greeting as he headed purposefully towards Lieutenant Van Buren's office.  
"I see Eva's and the Rani's TARDISes have gone," he said as he walked into her office.  
"Yep," she replied. "They took them down to the evidence locker a little bit ago."  
"They're done searching them?" Van Buren snorted.  
"Are you kidding me? We'll be working on searching them 'til this time _next_ year!"  
"Well, I stopped by to bring you these," the Doctor said, pulling the two main space-time elements out of his pockets. "They belong with the TARDISes as evidence, I suppose." He put them on her desk. "Just make sure no one tries reinstalling them… the results could be nasty if one pokes around underneath a TARDIS console when they don't know what they're doing."  
"Thanks. I'll have them sent down to Evidence later."  
"What's up, Doc?" Briscoe's voice asked. The Doctor turned to see the detective and his partner standing behind him.  
"You should have a carrot in your mouth when you say that," he replied mildly. Briscoe laughed.  
"How was Gallifrey?" Green asked. The Doctor shrugged.  
"Haven't gone yet," he replied. "I'm to pick up Mister Parker and Eva's body at the M.E.'s office in a little bit, and I came by here to turn in the rest of the evidence to the Lieutenant." He indicated the two TARDIS components on her desk with the wave of a hand.  
"You know, Lennie," Green said slowly. "One of our duties as police officers is to notify the victim's family of her murder."  
"Victim's family – yeah, right. You just want to go to Gallifrey," Briscoe said knowingly. Green didn't even try to deny it.  
"Well, don't _you_?" the younger detective shot back.  
"Well… yeah," Briscoe admitted. "Maybe a little. Just so I could say I'd been there and gotten the t-shirt."  
"Time Lords do not sell t-shirts," the Doctor informed Briscoe, who laughed. He saw the pleading look in Green's eyes and shook his head, sighing in resignation. "All right, gentlemen," he said briskly, "The TARDIS express nonstop to Gallfirey and surrounding systems is about to begin courtesy boarding for select members of New York's finest." As he waved goodbye to Van Buren and motioned for the two detectives to follow him to the police box, he continued nattering on in the singsong tones of an overly cheerful airport gate agent. "In order to receive our special discount, you must remain on Gallifrey for at least one Sunday night and return to Earth no earlier than two hours before your departure. Be sure to note in advance that as the Time Lords are a famously unexciting group of people, no refund will be issued in the event of your untimely demise due to boredom during your stay. Please present your boarding passes to the raving nutter in the green frock coat." He unlocked the door and swept them inside. "Welcome aboard!"  
"When will the flight attendants start serving drinks?" Green asked as he stepped into the TARDIS.  
"I _quit_ drinking so I'd stop seeing stuff like I've been seeing recently!" Briscoe said, following his partner inside. The Doctor hurried over to the control console and began setting coordinates.  
"We'll just drop by Elizabeth's office and pick up Andrew and Eva's body, and then we're off to Gallifrey. I suggest that you gentlemen make yourselves comfortable, because it won't be a short trip."  
"But this is a _time machine_," Briscoe said.  
"Traveling through the Time Vortex _takes time_, Detective. It is not instantaneous."  
"Just so you have us back in time for dinner, Doc, I won't complain," Briscoe said jokingly.  
"Dinner?" the Doctor asked, sounding insulted. "I'll have you back in time for _lunch_!" He hit a switch and the TARDIS dematerialized.  
  
  
"You'll want something warm to wear," the Doctor advised his passengers a few hours before their scheduled arrival. "Gallifrey is a very cold planet by human standards. However, I think you'll find the TARDIS has a wide selection of clothing, and I'm sure you'll be able to find something suitable. Third corridor on the right, sixth, seventh and eighth doors on the left," he told them helpfully. With this advice, the three humans went off into the TARDIS in search of sweaters and jackets. When he was sure they were gone, he punched the Lady President's private call number into the communications network. After a moment, the image of a young woman with chin-length straight blonde hair appeared on the TARDIS viewscreen.  
"Doctor, what a surprise!" she said, smiling warmly.  
"Hello, Romana," he said, returning her smile. "You're looking very well!"  
"Why thank you, Doctor. You always were quite the charmer! But I sense that this isn't a social call." He sighed.  
"Perceptive as always. Eta Nu has been murdered – "  
"Oh no!" she exclaimed. "How horrible. And the Eye?"  
"Right here," he said, giving her a tired smile and holding up a plastic bag by its tied handles.  
"Key Food?" she asked, frowning.  
"Never mind. It's not important. Listen, there are a few more things you and I need to discuss before we materialize. Do you have a bit of time?"  
"For you, Doctor, I have all the time in the Universe!"  
  
  
Romana was waiting for them when the TARDIS materialized near the High Council chambers. She was dressed in her long white robes of office with a matching winged headdress seated on her shoulders. Her castellan, a small dark-haired woman, stood on her left side and her chancellor, a tall, imposing grey-haired man, stood on her right. The Presidential group was surrounded by an honor guard of Chancellery Guards, who snapped to attention when the door to the police box opened.  
"Hello, Doctor, and welcome home," Romana said as the Time Lord stepped out, followed by the two detectives and Parker.  
"Madame President," the Doctor said, giving her a little bow. "May I present my traveling companions?" As he made the introductions and she shook their hands as a human would have done, two of the guards disappeared into his TARDIS and returned with Eva's covered body on a stretcher. Upon seeing it, Parker let out a moan and released Romana's hand.  
"Where… where are they taking her?" he asked Romana as they bore her body away.  
"For processing, Mister Parker," she said in a kind voice. "There will be a memorial service for her later. I'm sure you'll wish to attend. Perhaps you'd like to say a few words in her memory as well." He nodded, his eyes glittering.  
"Wait!" he suddenly called out, pushing through the Presidential party to hurry after the two guards and their burden. With a nod from Romana, they halted their progress. When Parker reached her stretcher, he pulled the little green box from his pocket and fumbled it open, and then pulled her left hand out from under the sheet. "You should have this, Eva," he said quietly, sliding the ring onto the third finger. It was a perfect fit. "I only wish I'd given it to you before… Goodbye, my darling. I'll never forget you." With a watery sigh, he kissed her hand and placed it back down at her side, pulling the sheet over to cover it. As the guards continued on their way, he saw the castellan and the chancellor walk off, presumably to return to their duties. He felt someone come to stand by his side.  
"She was a very special person, Mister Parker," the Lady President said quietly. Though he was not a tall man, she was smaller still and had to look up to meet his eyes. "Know that all of Gallifrey mourns with you this day," she intoned formally. As though her words were a signal, the remainder of the honor guard came forward to surround them. Romana took his arm and led him away, coolly meeting the gaze of any passing Time Lord or Lady who looked in their direction, as though silently daring them to say something. None of them did.  
Back by the police box, the Doctor and the two detectives had watched all of this in silence.   
"Oh, good girl!" the Doctor said quietly when Romana led Parker away. "No one will dare say anything now!"  
"Your Lady President has quite a flair for the dramatic gesture," Briscoe remarked.   
"Yes," the Doctor agreed with a grin. "I taught her well!"  
"Theta!" a new voice proclaimed. "You old rogue!" They turned to see the new arrival, a very young-looking man with black hair and dark green eyes. He hurried toward them, the elaborate sleeves of his scarlet and orange robes flapping and his large winged headdress listing back precariously on his shoulders. The Doctor peered at him for a moment.  
"Zeta!" he finally said brightly. "That's a new body!"  
"And about time too, don't you think?"  
"Oh yes, I do," the Doctor agreed, nodding soberly.  
"Well… do you like it?"  
"No." Grinning hugely, Zeta invited the Doctor to perform a physically impossible sexual act upon his person, and both Time Lords broke out laughing. Briscoe and Green exchanged a look, eyebrows raised. "Good Heavens, where are my manners?" the Doctor asked rhetorically. "Zeta, meet two of New York's finest, Detective Lennie Briscoe and Detective Ed Green."  
"New York's finest _what_?" Zeta asked with a puzzled frown.  
"Police officers, Zeta," the Doctor said in a tone that suggested infinite patience. "Police officers."  
"Oh, have you been arrested?" Zeta asked, not sounding very surprised. He looked at the detectives, an eager gleam in his eyes. "What's he done, stolen another TARDIS? No… you don't have TARDIS technology on Earth… hmm… has he defaced the Statue of Liberty in a unique and interesting way, perhaps?"  
"Uh, no…" Green said, taken by surprise. "He didn't do anything like that, and he's not under arrest,"   
"Should he be?" Briscoe asked.  
"Probably," Zeta said. "Just on general principle if nothing else." The Doctor sighed.  
"Gentlemen, this is Lord Zeta of the House of Starkweather of the Prydonian order. He was a few years ahead of me at the Academy."  
"Let me guess," Briscoe said. "They call him 'Zete'."  
"The things they call _him_ can't be repeated in polite company," the Doctor said with a straight face.  
"I wouldn't talk if I were you, Theta," the other Time Lord said. He looked at the detectives. "Did he ever tell you about the time he painted – "  
"Yes, all right," the Doctor interrupted. "The detectives aren't interested in ancient history, Zeta."  
"Who says?" Green asked. "Tell us about the time he painted." The Doctor sighed.  
"I have a feeling that I'm going to regret bringing the two of you here."  
"Probably," Briscoe agreed. "Zete, what'd he paint?" The young-looking Time Lord grinned.  
"He painted – " and here Zeta said a long phrase in the musical Gallifreyan tongue " – on the front wall of the Prydonian Academy!"  
"And what's that mean?" Green asked. Zeta's eyebrows came together in thought.  
"Um… I think it may be untranslatable to a species that does not regenerate… it takes masturbation to a whole different level. It's quite a filthy concept, and a very rude thing to say about the dean of one's college!"  
"You know," Briscoe said, grinning hugely and clapping the Doctor on the shoulder, "The more I get to know this guy, the better I like him!"  
"Did you get caught?" Green asked the Doctor, who merely smiled.  
"Everyone _knew_ he'd done it," Zeta said. "But no one could prove it."  
"And why you keep repeating the rumor that I was the culprit is beyond me, Zeta," the Doctor said with mock indignation.  
"By the way, where is the lovely Miss Jovanka?" Zeta asked. "Does she still travel with you?" The Doctor shook his head. "A pity. I would have liked to have seen her again in _this_ body; I'm afraid I wasn't much fun in my last incarnation."  
"You appear to be making up for lost time in this one," the Doctor said dryly, reaching out to re-seat his friend's headdress, which had continued listing dangerously during their conversation and now threatened to fall backwards off his shoulders. "You look like you've just come from a frat party."  
"No one dressed like him at the frat parties _I_ went to," Green said with a smile.  
"Not even on Halloween?" Briscoe asked.  
"Oh, I almost forgot," Zeta said, reaching into his robes and pulling out something that looked like a small blue pamphlet. "I've been studying New York law since I heard that you made the streets of Earth safe from our latest criminal element." He held out the blue pamphlet to the two detectives. "Please give that to Mister McCoy with my compliments."  
"What is it?" Briscoe asked curiously. Zeta gave him a determined smile.  
"It is a motion to extradite the Rani back to Gallifrey, to stand trial here for her murder of a citizen of this planet – along with her various other crimes, of course."   
"If I know Jack, he'll say the murder was committed in _his_ jurisdiction and that you people can have what's left when _he's_ done with her," Briscoe said, pocketing the motion.   
"A man after my own hearts," Zeta said. The Doctor frowned.  
"You're on the other side of the courtroom now, are you Zeta?" he asked.   
"Yes, I've joined the Council's prosecution team. Got tired of defending people who were obviously guilty."  
"I think you and Jack will get along just fine when all this is over," Green said with a grin. Suddenly, they saw Romana approaching from the direction of the High Council chambers. She had shed her elaborate robes and was dressed in a long pink dress with small white flowers printed around the edge of the neckline.  
"Doctor, do you have some spare time to discuss that matter you brought up during our last conversation?" She glanced at the others. "If it's convenient."  
"Of course," he replied at once. "Zeta, would you… oh dear, I'm going to regret this… would you be so kind as to entertain the detectives in my absence?"  
"Nothing would please me more!" he replied with enormous sincerity, linking arms with Briscoe and Green. As he led them off, the Doctor heard him say, "Did Theta ever tell you about the time he 'borrowed' the Patrexes' Great Seal and relocated it to – " The Doctor groaned.  
"You've got quite a reputation from your Academy days," Romana noted with a smile. "Not entirely undeserved, I might add."  
"Let's talk about something else," the Doctor suggested, offering her his arm. "What's this I've read about a new looming technique?" She laughed.  
"Trying to change the subject, I see," she said, nodding. "A clever ploy. All right, I'll allow it," she said magnanimously.  
"I understand you're weaving memories and knowledge in with the genes."   
"That's right. It's all still very experimental. I didn't know you kept up with our genetic engineering program."  
"I'm no expert by any means, but I do like to attempt to keep my hand in," he admitted. "You never know when a piece of information might turn out to be useful."  
  
  
They were at a bar.   
It was dark.   
Zeta and Green were very drunk; Zeta was wearing Green's suit jacket over his scarlet and orange robes, and Green was wearing Zeta's Prydonian headdress and making friends with everyone in the bar.  
"Naw, man… humans don't regenerate," Green was telling a Time Lord that Zeta didn't know. "If we did, do you think Lennie'd look like _that_?" he continued, pointing at Briscoe.   
"_Kush meer in toches,_" Briscoe told him good-naturedly.  
"Wait a minute," Zeta said with a frown. "I've heard that before! Where… oh yes, now I remember. Theta's mother used to say that quite often!"  
"Yeah, I bet she did," Briscoe agreed.  
"No one ever figured out what it meant," Zeta said. Briscoe smirked and took a sip of his drink, a hot beverage that he'd been told was the Time Lord equivalent of coffee and was approximately 300% caffeine. It was bitter, but he'd had worse in the squad room.  
"Having fun?" the Doctor's voice asked; Briscoe only just managed not to jump.  
"_He_ is," the detective replied without turning around, pointing at Green. "Your pal Zete managed to convince him that since it's night here, he's off duty."  
"Oh dear," the Doctor said, frowning. "Well, we'd better get him back to the TARDIS."  
"Van Buren'll skin him alive if he comes back in this shape," Briscoe said.  
"Don't worry, I've got some alcohol dispersion pads that will sober him up right away. Your lieutenant doesn't even have to know about this." He handed Briscoe a paper sack. "These are for you and Detective Green. A present from Romana."  
"What is it?" Green asked, suddenly appearing at his partner's side, a very drunk Zeta hovering close behind. Briscoe opened the sack and pulled out a white garment, holding it up to inspect it.  
"It's a t-shirt!" Briscoe said, grinning. "What's it say?" Zeta squinted at the Gallifreyan text, shaking his head.  
"I don't get it," he finally admitted.  
"There's one in there for Detective Green as well. Romana had them made up to my specificatons," the Doctor told them with a grin, "and they say, 'I went to Gallifrey and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!'"  
  
  
No one in the 27th Precinct paid a bit of attention when the police box materialized in the middle of the squad room.  
"It's late afternoon!" Briscoe said, clutching his paper sack and stepping out of the TARDIS.  
"So?" asked the Doctor, following close behind.  
"You said you'd have us back before lunch, remember?" The Doctor's eyebrows went up.  
"I believe the phrase is, '_kush meer in toches_,'" he said with a completely straight face. Briscoe burst out laughing as Van Buren walked up to them.  
"I'm glad _you're_ having a good time," the lieutenant said sarcastically. She frowned. "What the _hell_ is that thing, Detective?" This last was said to Green, who had just emerged from the police box still wearing Zeta's headdress.  
"Um, a souvenir," he muttered, pulling the headdress off and tossing it on his desk.  
"Hmph. While you two have been off gallivanting around the universe, the Rani died in her cell."  
"What?" Briscoe asked. "How?" Van Buren shrugged.  
"No one knows yet," she said. "But Rodgers said it looks like natural causes."  
"She's done an autopsy?" the Doctor asked.  
"Not yet."  
"We've got to get down there," the Time Lord said urgently. "She'll regenerate! Elizabeth isn't safe!"  
  
  
They found Doctor Rodgers lying on the autopsy table. The Doctor quickly determined that she was alive but unconscious.  
"Quite a nasty bump on the head," he murmured, running a finger over the back of Rodgers's skull. He shook her gently. "Elizabeth… Elizabeth… wake up!" She groaned, one hand coming up to rub her forehead. The Doctor picked her up and carried her to a chair, sitting her upright.  
"Why'd you move her?" Green asked.  
"Because waking up on her own autopsy table might give her a bit of a nasty start," he said reasonably.   
"Good thinking," Briscoe said. He noticed that one of the refrigeration units was standing open, and went to investigate.  
"What happened?" Rodgers asked blearily. "I was getting ready to start an autopsy when…" She shook her head. "I can't remember."  
"It looks like someone hit you from behind," the Doctor told her.  
"Who was in here?" Briscoe asked. Rodgers turned to look at the empty refrigeration unit.  
"The Rani," she said. "I was going to do her next."  
"You would have had an even nastier surprise if you had," the Doctor said quietly. "She wasn't really dead."   
"Oh no… I've seen _plenty_ of dead people in my time, Doctor," Rodgers told him. "She was good and dead, trust me. No pulse, no heart sounds, no breathing."  
"We were all taught to stop our hearts at the Academy," the Doctor said with a shrug. "And with a respiratory bypass system, she wouldn't need to breathe… at least not for an hour or so."  
"But she was _cold_, Doctor," Rodgers said. "I'm sure she was dead." He reached out and laid his hand on her cheek, and she flinched back in surprise.  
"You see, I'm cold by your standards too," he said. "And I assure you, I'm very much alive."  
"I'm putting out an APB on the Rani," Green said, picking up a phone.  
"I suppose it couldn't hurt," the Doctor said with a shrug.   
"She can't get far," Green said. "Not without her TARDIS… right?"  
"You're right," the Doctor admitted. "But she could regenerate… completely change her appearance. That's what _I'd_ do in her place, anyway."  
"So now we're looking for someone who could look like _anyone_," Briscoe said, throwing his hands up in the air.  
"I'm afraid so," the Doctor agreed.  
"I give up," Green said morosely.  
  
  
Concluded in Chapter 6  
  
  
  
  
  



	6. Chapter 6

  
"Law and Disorder"  
  
  
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: See: Chapter 1.  
  
  
Chapter 6  
  
  
Tegan was waiting when the TARDIS materialized in its customary corner in Angelina's living room; the Doctor was astounded when he stepped out to see her standing in the candle-lit living room wearing a long black silk robe and holding two glasses of white wine.  
"Hello, Doctor," she said, handing him a glass of wine. He sipped it, looking around suspiciously.  
"What have I done this time?" he asked warily.  
"Done?" she asked, laughing. "What do you mean?"  
"This is some kind of clever ruse to lull me into a false sense of security so you can catch me completely by surprise when you begin yelling at me." He took another sip of wine. "Right?"  
"Don't be silly," she told him with another laugh. "Angelina is out with Detective Munch, and we have the place to ourselves, so I thought I'd make us a nice dinner, and then…" she shrugged. "Who knows?"  
"You cooked?" he asked, sounding more suspicious than ever. "It's poisoned, is that it? Never mind," he said with a wave of his hand. "I'll have an antidote somewhere; I _am_ a doctor, after all." She laughed, taking his arm and leading him to the dining room, where the table was set for two and also lit only with candles.   
"There's dessert as well, if you're feeling especially brave," she told him with a smile as he sat down.  
"I didn't know you could cook," he said, watching as she brought out salads from the kitchen.  
"Never had any reason to cook on the TARDIS, did I? You have food synthesizers in there." As they were finishing their salads, the phone rang. "I'll get it," she said, rising and taking their salad bowls into the kitchen. He could hear the quiet murmur of her voice as she spoke to whoever was on the other end of the telephone. After a few minutes, she returned holding two steaming plates of fettuccini aflredo and balancing a basket of garlic bread in the crook of one arm. "That was Detective Briscoe on the phone," she told him as she set down the plates.  
"Oh?"  
"He said to tell you that someone's stolen the Rani's TARDIS from the evidence locker, and that a police woman was later found unconscious and missing her uniform in the ladies' room." The Doctor sighed. "Oh, and he also said to tell you '_Oy vey ismier_, that miserable _yente_ is on the loose again', whatever _that_ means." Despite the bad news of the Rani's escape, he had to laugh. "So, tell me about your day playing cops and robbers with the NYPD," she invited. He took a sip of wine, twined some pasta around his fork, and began to talk. He told her everything, beginning with his and Angelina's trip to the museum the previous morning up to materializing in the living room an hour before, pausing only long enough for Tegan to clear away their empty dishes and bring out pieces of chocolate cake and cups of coffee spiked with anisette. By the time he was finished talking, the cake had been consumed, the coffee was drunk (and Tegan was half-drunk, but that's another story) and the candles had burned nearly all the way down.  
"What a sad story," Tegan finally said. "He really loved her and then that bitch the Rani had to come along…" She sighed. "And what she said to you when they arrested her! I wish I'd been there… I'd have popped her right in the nose!"   
"I bet you would have at that," the Doctor said, giving her a fond smile. He looked down at his plate, idly pushing his remaining bite of cake around with his fork. "This incarnation is different from my others," he said quietly. "Last time around, what she said this morning wouldn't have bothered me a bit; I'd have laughed it off, and probably said something even nastier about her genetic weave in return. But not now." He looked up at her. "I seem to feel everything more deeply, and I've done things I'd have never even thought of doing before. I'm more… I don't know, more…"  
"Human?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. He nodded silently. "I'm glad to hear it," she said with a smile. She stood and held out her hand.  
"What about the dishes?" he asked, frowning.  
"The dishes can wait," she said, and blew out the candles.   
  
  
Later, in bed.  
She propped herself up on one elbow to look down at him in the dimness of the candlelit room.  
"You're so different," she murmured. "And yet just the same." He laughed.  
"I feel the same about you," he said, moving his head a bit so he could look up at her. "Both of our bodies have changed."  
"Having a baby will do that to a person… and so will getting older," she told him. "Not that you'd know about either of those!" She used two fingertips to trace the line of his cheekbone. "I suppose I'll get used to it eventually, the new face, the new body."   
"I hope so," he replied. "I don't plan to change them anytime soon!" She laughed. He was shorter than the Doctor she remembered, and his body wasn't muscular or athletic; once she'd gotten those baggy clothes off of him, she had been surprised to see that he was thin, almost gaunt beneath them. And once she'd gotten him into bed, she had found that there was a new tenderness in him, and a fierce passion that she couldn't reconcile with her memories of _her_ Doctor, who had undoubtedly loved her, but had always somehow remained unreachable even during their most intimate moments together. _More human, indeed_, she thought, and saw him smile.  
"What are you thinking about?" he asked, turning on his side to face her.  
"Why?"  
"Your eyes changed just then," he told her. "As though you'd had a really wonderful idea." She grinned.  
"Maybe I have," she said, and he laughed when she pushed him over onto his back.  
  
  
Later, in bed.  
She was snuggled up against him; she knew she had to be making him uncomfortably warm with her body heat, but so far he hadn't complained. She had been surprised to feel a vague tug of jealousy when he'd spoken of his adventures with Briscoe and Green over the past two days. Though she had often been confused, lonely, and frightened half out of her wits during her travels with the Doctor, she had to admit that there were times when she missed the excitement, when she missed waking up wondering where they would go and what they would see that day… and what kind of trouble they'd get into, and how they'd get out of it. And _him_. Most of all, she had missed _him_. _Angelina is grown now, she mused. And very successful. I certainly don't have to worry about her any longer…_  
"Doctor," she said quietly.  
"Mmm," he replied.  
"I've been thinking," she began.  
"So have I," he said with a little laugh. "Go ahead, what were you thinking about?"  
"No, you first," she told him.  
"Are you sure?" he asked.  
"Absolutely. I'm curious whether we've had the same thought." He frowned.  
"That would be interesting," he said musingly. "You see, I've been thinking about how much more special this is with someone I really love." She blinked.  
"What?" He didn't seem to notice the change in her voice.  
"When I slept with Benny – "   
"Who's Benny?" she asked, pulling away from him. He suddenly realized that he might be in trouble.  
"Bernice Summerfield. A companion. She traveled with me for awhile." He tried a friendly smile. "You know, like you did." Almost before the words were out of his mouth, he knew that they had been the wrong thing to say.  
"So I was just the first in a long line?" she asked angrily, backing away from him. He sat up in the bed.  
"No, Tegan, it wasn't – "  
"I see… I gave you a taste for it and when I left, you went on to bonk your subsequent companions too!"  
"Tegan, that's not what – "  
"After you, there was no one else in my life until tonight! No one!"  
"That's not my fau – "  
"And here you were shagging everything with a pulse!" she shouted over him, getting up to look for her silk robe.   
"You weren't the first in a long line of _anything_, Tegan!" He was almost yelling now. She found her robe and pulled it around herself, tying the belt with short, angry gestures. "It was just the one time. And just the one woman."  
"But you had to wait until you came _three times_ before you told me about it!" she shouted through furious tears, grabbing his clothes and throwing them at him. "Get out, you bastard. Get out and don't ever come back! I never want to see your face – _any_ of your faces – ever again!" She stormed out of the room, and he heard the bathroom door slam.  
"Well, that didn't quite go as planned," he said into the empty bedroom.  
  
  
He finished buttoning his shirt as he walked into the darkened living room, his cravat loose around his neck and his brocade waistcoat and velvet jacket thrown over one arm. He pulled on the waistcoat and then held the jacket up, searching for something in its pockets. Finally finding the small scrap of paper with the phone number on it, he pulled the jacket on and went to the phone. Consulting the paper once, he picked up the phone and began pushing buttons. Angelina answered her cell phone on the fourth ring.  
"It's me," he said.  
"Oh, hi," she said. No matter how much or how little time had passed between encounters or conversations, she always greeted him the same way: _Oh, hi_. "I'm at dinner with Munch… a little steak place he likes in Tribeca."  
"You call him 'Munch'?" he asked. She laughed.  
"_Everyone_ calls him 'Munch'! Wait, he wants to ask you something."  
"All right." He heard the phone being handed over.  
"Hello, Doctor?"  
"Hello, Detective Munch. You wanted to ask me something?" He suddenly wondered if Munch were going to ask him for his daughter's hand in marriage. The thought made him sit down hard; luckily, he was standing in front of the sofa at the time.  
"I was just wondering if you could tell me who _really_ killed JFK," Munch said. The Doctor laughed with relief.  
"I could tell you, but – "  
"But you'd have to kill me?"  
"Good grief no! I could tell you, but you wouldn't believe me!"  
"Try me," Munch invited. The Doctor sighed.  
"Marilyn Monroe."  
"I don't believe you!"  
"I _told_ you that you wouldn't believe me!"  
"But _she_ died before _he_ did!" The Doctor snorted.  
"You humans will believe _anything_, won't you?"  
"Wait, are you telling me – "  
"Enjoy your dinner, Detective Munch. Put my daughter back on, would you?" He heard the phone being passed back to Angelina.  
"Listen, I have to go. They're bringing the food."  
"All right. I just wanted you to know that I'm leaving."  
"Leaving?"  
"Your mother and I had a fight."  
"Another one? Whoa, there's a big news flash!"  
"She told me to get out." Angelina snorted.  
"She's told you to get out a hundred times before."  
"Yes, well, this time she really meant it. I'm afraid I've hurt her very badly. I know you've got to get off the phone… I just didn't want to leave without saying goodbye."  
"All right. I hope I see you again soon. And don't worry, whatever you did I'm sure Mum will get over it." The Doctor smiled sadly.  
"I wish that were true," he replied softly.   
"What was that? I didn't hear what you said."  
"I love you, Angelina. And I will see you soon, I promise."  
  
  
_Three weeks later…_  
  
  
Unshaven and still clad in his robe and slippers, Andrew Parker opened the door and picked up the newspapers that were sitting on his doormat. _The Supermodel and the Super Sleuth: Inside the Secret World of NY's Hottest Couple!_ blared the headline on the _New York Post_. He took the papers inside and shut the door. It had been three long weeks since Madame President Romana had personally returned him to his apartment not more than ten minutes after he'd left, three long weeks of going through the motions of living without any enjoyment. He had called off work this particular morning because he didn't think he could face leaving his apartment; a remote part of his brain recognized the symptoms of severe clinical depression, but he didn't seem to have the energy or the desire to do anything about it. He put the newspapers down on the kitchen table. The cats wound around his legs, meowing. He dumped some Cat Chow into their bowls and realized vaguely that he would have to go out at some point that day; he was nearly out of cat food. He supposed that it was a good sign that he was not yet so far gone that he would neglect his pets… _their_ pets, he thought, and his eyes filled with tears. He and Eva had acquired the cats together one by one, the orange tabby from a shelter, the calico from the veterinarian's office where she'd been abandoned, and the little brown one from a vacant lot where she'd been looking for food. He sighed and sat down at the table, preparing to escape from his troubles for a little bit anyway by losing himself in the mindless gossip about the supermodel and her policeman. There was a knock at the door. "Probably another UPS delivery for Mr. Babbage across the hall," he muttered to himself. The knocking became more insistent. "All right, all right, I'm coming!" He walked out into the living room and pulled the door open. A tall woman stood in the hallway. She had long straight chestnut hair that fell down past her waist and dark hazel eyes that danced with joy. When she saw him, she smiled brilliantly.  
"Hello, Andy," she said. He blinked.  
"Do I know you?" he asked, frowning. Still smiling, she held up her left hand. On its third finger was a $10,000 diamond and platinum engagement ring from Tiffany & Co.  
  
  
"Explain this to me again," he said. They were sitting at his kitchen table with cups of coffee in front of them. The cats, who almost always hid from strangers (their behavior the day the Doctor and the detectives had paid their visit had been an odd exception) wound themseves around her legs, purring. "How could you have regenerated? The M.E. _autopsied_ your body, for God's sake!"  
"It's not a regeneration, Andy," she said patiently. "I explained to you before where new Time Lords come from, remember?"  
"Yeah, they're loomed," he said, nodding. "I remember."  
"Good. Now, they've developed a new technique… it's still experimental. In fact, I'm their first test case ever."  
"Go on," he said, taking a sip of coffee.  
"They looked up the genetic weave they used when they first loomed me, and rewove the pattern with memories they were able to take from my mind. It's not perfect; I'm missing huge chunks of my memory and there's nothing to be done about it. But I remember _you_, and I remember the life we had together, so I am content. I know I don't look the same as I did before; the Time Lords knew I would want to return to you and thought it best if you didn't have to try to explain how Eva Newton had miraculously risen from the dead. But it's me inside, and I hope you can get used to this new body in time." She reached across the table and took his hand. "Can you?" she asked, suddenly sounding unsure and worried. He stood and went to her.  
"New body?" he asked, opening his arms. She stood, and he pulled her into a tight embrace. "What new body? I only see you."  
  
  
FINIS.  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
